Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad
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This Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad is loaded with crispy bacon, colorful bow tie pasta, juicy tomatoes, crunchy bell peppers, olives, and hearty kidney beans for a satisfying side dish that’s perfect for potlucks, barbecues, and family gatherings.
The creamy dressing combines classic ranch seasoning with a rich garlic spread, creating a bold, savory flavor that coats every bite. Tri-color bow tie pasta holds the dressing beautifully while adding a cheerful pop of color to the bowl.
This pasta salad is easy to make ahead and packed with texture and flavor, this crowd-pleasing pasta salad is always one of the first dishes to disappear.
This ranch pasta salad has a wonderful smorgasbord of flavors. The bacon, ranch dressing and pasta blend provide a good base for many varied ingredients.
Along with the flavor and satisfying crunch of the bacon and vegetables, the kidney beans add substance, fiber, and protein without making the salad feel heavy. This makes this salad a good meal prep option.
A large pasta salad like this one is easy to hold in the fridge for several days for a quick bite of sustaining carbs, some protein and healthy fresh veggies when you don’t have time to fool with lunch.
Bacon, olives and kidney beans and the ranch style dressing add flavor and texture to the cute bow tie pasta.
The grape tomatoes add wonderful pops of color and the peppers (any kind you like in all sorts of colors) make this a festive harvest dish with a satisfying crunch from the peppers.
Looking for MORE Pasta Salads?
Here’s a few of our favorites. Add even more protein to your ranch pasta salad with Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta salad recipe. It makes a complete dinner or lunch replacement.
Italian pasta salad is a yummy filling salad with lots of healthy greens and a delicious oil dressing.
And if you need a wonderful salad that holds well at room temperature and is very popular at parties our Mediterranean pasta salad is just the thing.
Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad Recipe:
Bacon Ranch Pasta salad is very filling. Fortunately it makes great leftovers. Make it for lunch or a heavy side with a light main dish.
Just remember this salad must be served cold at fridge temperatures for food safety.
TIP:
Keep the bacon thick cut and a high quality uncured bacon. This way the bacon provides a good presence in your salad without getting too greasy or salty.
Substitutions:
This is a flexible pasta salad recipe. Here are some ways to change this creamy pasta salad recipe and still keep the basic construct of a bacon ranch pasta salad.
- replace the kidney beans with drained and rinsed black beans if you prefer.
- use any type of peppers you prefer. We enjoy poblano and sweet bells mixed for flavor color and texture.
- any tomato will work if chopped to a fork size. But watch out for too juicy tomatoes. Scoop out the seeds if using large beefsteak or on the vine tomatoes before chopping.
- shell pasta can replace the bow tie.
- The garlic spread can be replaced with crushed garlic cloves run through a garlic press.
Suggested Crunchy toppings include: toasted sunflower seeds, or pumpkin seeds
Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad
Bacon Ranch Pasta salad is brimming with bacon, olives, tomatoes and peppers. Kidney beans add fiber and low-fat protein and color. All in a yummy ranch dressing. Add your own embellishments for a premium creamy pasta salad.
Ingredients
- 17.6 oz bag bow tie pasta
- 1/2 lb. bacon (thick cut)
- 14 oz. can black olives, diced
- 14 oz. can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 Cup grape tomatoes, chopped in half
- 3 peppers, try a mix of low heat peppers, like poblano variety, with sweet peppers diced fine.
- 1 Cup mayonnaise
- 3 Tablespoons ranch dry seasoning mix
- 1/2 Tablespoon garlic powder
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Boil pasta 8 minutes until firmly done, al denté, in a large pot of water with one tablespoon of oil.
- Drain, rinse with cool water and set aside
- Chop bacon into one inch pieces and cook on medium heat in a large frying pan until it is thoroughly cooked.
- Drain the cooked bacon on a paper towel. Allow it to cool.
- In a large mixing bowl mix together the mayonnaise and dry seasonings.
- Add in the olives, cooled bacon, kidney beans and stir thoroughly
- Pour in the cooked, cooled and drained pasta.
- Add the chopped tomatoes and peppers. Stir thoroughly
- Place in the fridge, covered, 60 minutes or until cooled.
- Salt and pepper to taste at serving.
- Serve thei salad COLD. It mustbe kept at fridge temperatures for food safety.
Notes
This salad holds well in the fridge covered for several days.
TIP:
Keep the bacon thick cut and a high quality uncured bacon. This way the bacon provides a good presence in your salad without getting too greasy or salty.
Substitutions:
This is a flexible pasta salad recipe. Here are some ways to change this creamy pasta salad recipe and still keep the basic construct of a bacon ranch pasta salad.
- replace the kidney beans with drained and rinsed black beans if you prefer.
- use any type of peppers you prefer. We enjoy poblano and sweet bells mixed for flavor color and texture.
- any tomato will work if chopped to a fork size. But watch out for too juicy tomatoes. Scoop out the seeds if using large beefsteak or on the vine tomatoes before chopping.
- shell pasta can replace the bow tie.
- The garlic spread can be replaced with crushed garlic cloves run through a garlic press.
Suggested Crunchy toppings include: toasted sunflower seeds, or pumpkin seeds
See our complete recipe demonstration in the video below.
Nutrition Information
Yield
15Serving Size
1Amount Per Serving Calories 312Total Fat 21gSaturated Fat 4gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 16gCholesterol 22mgSodium 616mgCarbohydrates 21gFiber 4gSugar 2gProtein 10g
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This recipe is adapted from Allrecipes.com
Love this fresh looking salad! This will definitely become a regular at my house. Thanks!
Hi Shweta, Its yummy. hope you enjoy it. Have a wonderful day!
I’m SO jealous of your garden! It’s so hard to grow much of anything here in Phoenix. Great salad for a potluck or picnic!
This is a good salad! I wish you could grow your own produce too Gwen! But we envy you your fantastic warm winters!And lemon and orange trees!
Looks delicious! I love Pasta Salad and am always looking for a new recipe for it!
Thanks Jessy. I hope you love it. This one is so good!
I can’t even grow a plant and you have a greenhouse!! WOW!! I am a tad green with envy over this. Did you say, BACON?? Fresh veggies, pasta and bacon?? Yup, I’m sold!
Thanks Betsy!We love our greenhouse 🙂
Your tomato and pepper plants look fabulous. They did wonderfully in your greenhouse. Congrats on a successful season. Pasta salad are summer favorites here. They are an easy way to get more veggies in our diet.
I completely agree Nicky. Thank you for the visit!
I’m so excited that pasta salad season has arrived again, this version sounds delicious with the bacon and ranch!
Thank you Joy!
I would love to know more about your green house. We built one, but it has some issues on the look out for what others are doing that is working. Showing some love from the Let’s Get Real Facebook group.
Joyce I’m so glad you stopped by! We are very excited to talk greenhouse until you politely ask us to stop. Please ask anything you like in the comments here or email me if you like at homemadefoodjunkie@outlook.com. We would love to hear from you!
Thank you Erlene! Our greenhouse produce is pretty darn wonderful in this salad.
Looks delicious. Thanks for sharing!
All I had to see was bacon…lol. I love that you can use your beautiful veggies in your salad. The taste must be amazing with such fresh ingredients.
I love pasta salad and I am so jealous you already have peppers and tomatoes!!
We love our greenhouse!
This salad is perfect not only to accompany a meal but as a meal on its own.
Katerina this salad is great on it’s own for a light lunch or snack. Thanks so much for stopping by!
How Lucky you are to grow your own vegetables Diane! The salad sounds fantastic!
Thank you Hadia. We do love our fresh greenhouse veggies. They make an awesome salad!
Your greenhouse garden is gorgeous! Those beautiful veggies added to your pasta dish makes it even more special (and delicious, I bet!).
Right you are Foodie Affair:) Thanks for stopping by!
I love all the healthful and beautiful color in your dish. YUM.
Thank you KC!
What a lovely pasta recipe filled with wonderful greenhouse goodness!
Thank you Heidy! We enjoyed this salad so much with our fresh greenhouse veggies!