Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad is the creamy pasta salad you’ve been waiting for. With a delicious dressing and lots of bacon, cheese and yummy vegetables in this salad, this is the side dish your next BBQ party needs. Try it this weekend – it will be the star of the buffet!
Creamy ranch pasta salad recipe
- This recipe is super easy to put together. Any busy mom’s dream, right?
- It’s a total crowd pleaser! Again, dream come true. That creamy dressing really seals the deal.
- The kids LOVE it. Well, at least mine do. Spearing up peas and corn on their little forks? I think I can stop giving them toys 🤷🏻♀️
Usually I’m more into things like my Greek Pasta Salad or a classic Italian Pasta Salad. But this creamy bacon ranch one is so much better than I ever would have expected it to be, if I can be honest with you for a minute. Try it! Even if you don’t usually go for creamy pasta salads. You’ll love this one.
Ingredients you’ll need
Here is a visual overview of the ingredients in the recipe. Scroll down to the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post for quantities!
Ingredient notes
- Pasta: The best kinds of shapes for this salad are short ones like medium shells, bowties and rotini. I guess macaroni would work, too. But then it would be a bacon ranch macaroni salad 😉 I don’t recommend using something like penne or rigatoni, because the bacon, peas and things get stuck in them.
- Peas: Please make sure to cook the peas according to package directions before adding them to the salad. Frozen vegetables that aren’t properly heated can be the cause of food borne illness.
- Corn: Feel free to use fresh corn instead of canned – we love it air fried or grilled in foil!
- Cheese: I used a shredded cheddar blend. Feel free to use diced cheddar, or a different cheese like Monterey or Colby Jack if you prefer.
- Bacon: I air fried the bacon, but you can cook it any way you like. Feel free to use pre-cooked bacon or bacon bits for quicker prep.
- Green pepper/red onion/celery: Feel free to leave out any of these. They add a lot of flavor and texture my family enjoys, but I know not everyone does. Entirely up to you!
- Ranch dressing: I used a double batch of my homemade ranch salad dressing, but bottled is perfectly fine.
How to make a ranch pasta salad
add ingredients to bowl add dressing combine
Pasta salads have one step:
- Mix everything together, cover and chill.
It really doesn’t get any easier, does it? The perfect side dish for summer barbecues and picnics. I love pasta salads so much!
Recipe tips
- Be sure to chill the salad. It just tastes better after the flavor had time to mingle for a bit!
- Depending on your pasta and how long you cooked it for, it might soak up a lot of the dressing while chilling. Be sure to have some extra on hand to add to the salad in case it’s not as creamy as you’d like it to be.
- I highly recommend rinsing the pasta under cold water right after draining it. This cools the pasta and washes away extra starches to help keep the pasta from sticking together.
- If you’re a beginner and not sure how you need to cook pasta, I have a tutorial for how to cook pasta.
Serving ideas
This recipe goes great with grilled meats or other summer-y dishes. Some of our favorites are marinated grilled pork chops or bbq pulled pork sandwiches. My children especially love this pasta salad with my pineapple bbq pulled pork!
And I sometimes serve it with oven fried chicken or buttermilk oven fried chicken (or lately air fryer fried chicken).
PS If you try this recipe, please leave a review in the comment section and add a star rating in the recipe card – I appreciate your feedback! Follow along on Pinterest, Facebook or Instagram. Sign up for my email list, too!
Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad
Recipe details
Ingredients
- 1 pound short pasta shapes such as shells, rotini or bow ties
- 8 ounces bacon browned and crumbled
- 4 ounces cheese shredded (Monterey Jack or cheddar are good choices)
- 1 cup frozen peas cooked according to package directions and cooled
- 1 cup canned corn kernels drained
- 1 green pepper finely diced
- 1 stick celery finely diced
- 1 red onion finely diced
- 3 cups Ranch dressing plus extra if needed
Instructions
- Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and rinse under cold water to cool. Drain again well.
- Mix pasta with all other ingredients in a large bowl. Chill in frige for at least two hours. Add more dressing if necessary after chilling.
Notes
- Corn: Feel free to use fresh corn instead of canned – we love it air fried or grilled in foil!
- Cheese: I used a shredded cheddar blend. Feel free to use diced cheddar, or a different cheese like Monterey or Colby Jack if you prefer.
- Bacon: I air fried the bacon, but you can cook it any way you like. Feel free to use pre-cooked bacon or bacon bits for quicker prep.
- Green pepper/red onion/celery: Feel free to leave out any of these.
- Ranch dressing: I used a double batch of my homemade ranch salad dressing, but bottled is perfectly fine.
Nutrition
More recipe information
Recipe first published on 05/01/2018. Updated with new photos, better text and slight improvements to the recipe on 06/08/2021.
LEO says
Had no corn but used dark red kidney beans instead ( drained & rinsed) Bottled ranch & cavatappi pasta. Really good!
Nora says
That sounds delicious!
Linda says
Great recipe. I had corn with red and green peppers so used that also. I added chicken cubes so it was a meal for us.
Gave some to neighbors and it was a hit
Nora says
I love your changes, Linda! Sounds absolutely delicious.