It has been far too long since I’ve shared a pasta salad recipe with you and I’m happy that we’re fixing that today! I’ve had this ranch pasta salad recipe on my to-do list for a WHILE but I wanted to wait until summer party/ grilling season to make it. It’s everything I had hoped for!

Like many of my other pasta salad recipes, I wanted to keep this one simple. It’s pasta, veggies, and ranch. unfussy peasy! You can use whatever pasta you want including a gluten free variation including lentil or black bean pasta.

How for this creamy ranch pasta salad recipe:

Start by making your pasta. As mentioned above, you can use whatever pasta you so desire but I genuinely like spirals for this. The dressing gets stick in all of the twists and grooves of the pasta and simply tastes worth the pot! If you’re looking for a healthier or gluten free option, I’m sure that this would taste great with wheat pasta, red lentil pasta, or one of the many other healthy and gluten free options out there now.

If you’re making my kitchen-made vegan ranch dressing, you can whip that together while the pasta cooks (it only takes a few minutes!).

Once everything is ready, you simply mix the pasta, ranch dressing, and veggies together in a large bowl until the ranch has coated everything. AND that’s it.

Can you refrigerate this cold pasta salad recipe?

You can keep this pasta salad in the fridge for a couple of days but I don’t recommend it. The pasta truly dries out after being in the fridge for a day. If you want for this ahead of time to serve at a party, I suggest that you toss the pasta and veggies together and then wait to add the ranch dressing until you’re ready to serve the dish.

If you do store some in the fridge, I would only plan to add a little extra ranch to the salad so that it’s not so dry.