Chicken Ceasar Pasta Salad
Warm weather means light dishes that still fill you up, like Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad. It’s full of amazing flavors and perfect for summer!
When summer rolls around, it can be hard to pick which amazing pasta salad to enjoy, but luckily this Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad hits the bull’s eye with all of your favorite ingredients, and it only takes 10 minutes to make! Pasta, chicken, bacon, cheese, lettuce, and a creamy Caesar dressing checks all the boxes for a great meal everyone loves!
Pasta Please!
Finding the suitable dish when you’re hot and don’t want to cook can be a chore. I want something substantial without feeling super heavy, and I find that pasta does the trick every time! Cold pasta is the perfect balance of filling but light, so I make Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad often, mainly because I get to throw in some of my favorite things, like chicken and bacon! This dish is an amazingly light weeknight meal that we all enjoy!
Add more delicious lightness to your summer with Chicken Caesar Salad and Chicken Caesar Salad Wraps– both are easy to make and amazing on hot days!
Other Recipes to Serve with Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad
- Berry Salad Fruit Lettuce Wraps are refreshing and full of sweet summer flavors!
- Chill out faster with a tall glass of Raspberry Peach Iced Tea so you can enjoy the BBQ for the rest of the day!
Ingredients
Chicken: For this recipe, you will need a couple of cups of chopped chicken. Cube up leftover chicken breast or shred a rotisserie chicken to make this recipe even more effortless.
Veggies: Romain lettuce will be used in this dish, and you can buy a bag of pre-chopped lettuce to save time if you like or chop it yourself.
Pasta: For this dish, pick out and cook a medium-sized pasta, such as bow-tie, rotini, or penne, according to the direction on the back of the box.
Toppings: Take your pasta salad from “eh” to “ah-mazing” and add crumbled bacon, shredded parmesan cheese, and croutons. Garnish the salad with a sprinkle more of bacon and parmesan. You’ll be glad you did!
Dressing: Pick your favorite Caesar dressing for this salad or prepare your favorite homemade recipe.
How to Make Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad
STEP ONE: In a large bowl, add the chicken, lettuce, cooked pasta, bacon, and parmesan cheese. Add the dressing and toss everything together, ensuring the salad is evenly coated.
STEP TWO: Add more dressing if desired to make the pasta salad as saucy as you like.
STEP THREE: Top the salad with croutons before serving and sprinkle on some more bacon and parmesan cheese.
Tips for Success
- Using leftover chicken or a rotisserie chicken makes easy work of this salad. If you prepare the chicken right before making the salad, let the chicken cool before adding it to the salad so that it doesn’t warm up the other ingredients.
- Besides chilling the chicken, chill all the other ingredients ahead of time to keep this salad cool and refreshing!
- It’s your salad, so add as much or as little dressing as you like! Adding more is always easier, so start with some dressing, mix and add a little at a time until it reaches the sauciness you like.
- Avoid making this salad more than two hours in advance, as the lettuce will begin to wilt.
How do I make this salad ahead of time?
To make your Caesar pasta salad ahead of time, prepare some ingredients, like chopping the romaine, cooking or shredding the chicken, and boiling the pasta, and then packaging them separately. When you are ready to assemble the salad, you can then pull everything out of the fridge, toss together and serve! Once prepared, you can store any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for about two days.
Who invented the Caesar salad?
The deliciously famous Caesar salad was invented in the 1920s by Caesar Cardini. Originally from Italy, Cardini had left California to avoid the prohibition laws of the ’20s and settled in Tijuana, Mexico. The recipe was born in 1924 in Tijuana and named after the chef who created it, not the Roman emperor.
Make the summer even cooler with these salads!
- Easy BLT Pasta Salad
- Italian Pasta Salad
- Crab Pasta Salad
- Spinach Artichoke Pasta Salad
- Dill Pickle Pasta Salad
Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad
Equipment
Ingredients
- 5 cups cooked farfalle pasta cooled (see note)
- 3 cups romaine lettuce chopped
- 2 cups cooked chicken chopped
- ¾ cup Caesar dressing plus more to taste
- ½ cup cooked bacon crumbled, plus more to garnish
- ½ cup Parmesan cheese shredded, plus more to garnish
- 1 cup croutons
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix together the pasta, romaine, chicken, Caesar dressing, bacon, and parmesan until everything is evenly coated with the dressing.
- Add the croutons on top and an extra sprinkle of bacon and parmesan cheese if desired. Serve immediately.*I do not recommend making this pasta salad more than 2 hours in advanace. The lettuce will begin to wilt the longer it sits.
Notes
- 5 cups of cooked short pasta is about 8 ounces uncooked.
- You can boil the pasta ahead of time and then toss it in a little olive oil to help keep it from sticking together. Then chill the pasta in the fridge until you’re ready to make the pasta salad.
- If you want to make everything at once, boil the pasta, prep the other ingredients, and then drain the pasta once it’s cooked to al dente. Run cold water over the pasta to cool it, and then drain well before adding it to the pasta salad.
