Easy Gourmet BLT Pasta Salad
A light, fresh, and mayo-free pasta salad with all the flavor notes of your favorite gourmet BLT!! Bring this to your next party!
Pasta salad is a big favorite of mine… it’s such a great side dish all year round, but especially in the summer! How do you like your pasta salad, with mayo or without? In the summer I prefer mine without mayo… I think the taste is lighter and I don’t have to worry about the mayo spoiling out in the heat! This pasta salad is a gourmet twist on a BLT.
This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone.
The “B” is obviously bacon, but it’s deliciously seasoned, the “L” is the herby, peppery arugula lettuce, and the “T” are some garlic roasted cherry tomatoes…. all tossed together in a light and flavorful olive oil, mustard, and herb vinaigrette!
To say that this pasta salad is tasty is an understatement 🙂 If you’d like, you can add some shredded Parmesan cheese.
Now it does take a little bit more time, since you’re roasting the cherry tomatoes… and while you could skip that step, the sweet tomato and roasted garlic flavor would be missing, but that’s totally up to you 🙂
Speaking of which, have you ever roasted cherry tomatoes? Ohhhhh you should… it really concentrates the sweet tomato-ness, so they’re literally bursting with flavor! They’re great in salads, pasta dishes, or even just on their own 🙂
To roast your tomatoes, just slice them and toss them in a few tablespoons of olive oil, salt, pepper, a sprinkle of oregano and some minced garlic. Bake them for about 15 minutes… that’s it 🙂
For all the strong flavors in this dish… it has a surprisingly nice fresh flavor. Some pasta salads can be so heavy, dripping with oils or sauce… but not this one. The light vinaigrette and plenty of fresh flavors really help to make this a light dish.
Whisk up your dressing while the pasta is boiling. Once you drain your pasta, toss it with about half of the dressing and let it cool to room temperature. Then just toss your chopped herbs, arugula, crumbled bacon and roasted tomatoes and add more dressing as needed. You can serve this pasta salad cold or room temperature.
There are some nights, I just want to have something light for dinner… so needless to say, there have been more than a few nights that this pasta salad wasn’t the side dish, but the main event 🙂
However, I can fully attest to how beautifully this pasta salad pairs with a big, juicy, crispy piece of fried chicken!
Just look at that crispy chicken!! Oooops, I think I just drooled on the keyboard a little… (we’ll pretend that didn’t happen…).
The fresh, crispy, perfectly seasoned fried chicken goes so well with the light and fresh pasta salad 🙂
I like to serve this pasta salad on a bed of arugula… that peppery bite is just so perfect!
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#Ad Easy Gourmet BLT Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- FOR THE ROASTED TOMATOES:
- 2 oz containers cherry or grape tomatoes halved, 10
- 8 cloves garlic minced
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp black pepper
- Sprinkle of dried oregano
- FOR THE PASTA SALAD:
- 1 lb dried pasta I used rotini
- 1/2 pound bacon cooked and crumbled
- 2 cups garlic roasted cherry tomatoes
- 1/4 cup chopped herbs (basil parsley, dill, chives, and oregano)
- 1/4 cup baby arugula
- FOR THE VINAIGRETTE:
- 1 Tbsp grainy Dijon mustard
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1 1/4 cups olive oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- FOR THE ROASTED TOMATOES:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- In a mixing bowl, add tomatoes and toss together with olive oil and seasonings. Pour onto a foil-lined baking sheet in a single layer.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until tomatoes are soft and have burst.
- FOR THE PASTA SALAD:
- In a mixing bowl, whisk mustard, garlic, salt and pepper, and vinegar. Pour in the olive oil, whisking as your pour, until well combined. Set aside.
- Boil pasta until al dente (according to package directions).
- Drain pasta and toss with half of the vinaigrette. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
- Add arugula, crumbled bacon, chopped herbs and roasted tomatoes. Toss to combine, adding more vinaigrette if desired.
- Serve warm temperature or chilled.
This pasta salad tastes as good as it looks! Another great recipe! I was worried about so much olive oil, but it turned out great and it mellowed out the mustard and apple cider flavors nicely. This will be a good one to take to potlucks.
Thank you so much Melinda!! I can’t wait for the weather to warm up so the potlucks and cookouts will start up 😀
This pasta salad looks amazing! So fresh! Pinned!
Thank you Mira!! 🙂
Your Pasta Salad looks fabulous! Thanks so much for sharing this awesome recipe with us at Full Plate Thursday!
Come Back Soon,
Miz Helen
Thank you so much Miz Helen!! 🙂
I’ll just take those tomatoes by themselves!! They look incredible!…you’ve got some great ideas around here!
Thanks Hillary!! I totally ate some of the tomatoes right off the pan as soon as they were roasted 😉
Oh Amanda!! Can I just come over for dinner?? I should not be browsing your blog before lunch! 😀 I wish I could have this for lunch now. It looks absolutely delicious!!
Hehe, c’mon over!! Can you imagine if we cooked dinner together? Our husbands would never stop eating 😀 Thank you girl! I was torturing myself before bed last night looking at your raspberry chocolate sauce all over that ice cream pop 🙂
This is such a lovely salad Amanda… pasta salads are totally me…esp now that I am trying to live without cream and butter 😉
Thanks so much for linking up to #SaucySaturdays
Thanks so much Swayam! Good luck with cutting cream and butter out 🙂
please don’t judge me… but….I just drooled a little LOL. Thank you for sharing at the Thursday Favorite Things blog hop. Watch for your feature on Monday!
Lol, no judgement here at all… it’s a great compliment, so thank you! 😀 And thank you SO much for featuring my post!!
Love that the cherry tomatoes are roasted and the “l” is arugula. This is my kind of past salad. I might sub in quinoa occasionally as well! Def a keeper. Thanks for linking to #SaucySaturdays.
Thanks Christine!! Oooooh quinoa would be awesome in this! 😀
I love a good pasta salad, and bacon makes everything better! Not to mention roasting veggies just amps up their flavor. I’ve bought Walmart’s chicken for tailgating parties but forgot about it for summer. I may be making a run out for some soon. Enjoy your weekend!
Thanks Julie!! Bacon + roasted veggies = one happy Amanda 🙂 Hope you’ve had a great 4th of July!
I’m so salty that we don’t have Walmart here in Australia! I remember about 12 or 13 years ago now, I went over to the US and my friends took me to a Walmart, and were laughing their butts off at me for acting like I’d just discovered Disneyland– you just don’t understand what it’s like!! You can get everything!! All in one place!! That’s so amazing!! I was running around like a four year old on red cordial– every aisle was a wonderland filled with all sorts of amazing goodies… and I must have gone to a small one, because there wasn’t a delicious fried chicken section (I would remember that, because I would have set up camp there and never left until I got deported for overstaying my visa).
I’m sorry, that turned into a very weird trip down memory lane that nobody asked for! But this recipe stirred up a lot of feelings in me, obviously 😉 I haven’t eaten pasta in forever, and now I’m looking at that rotini like it was made for BLT. And BLT was made for my belly.
Thank you Pug!! Lol, I love your trip down memory lane… had me smiling and laughing 🙂
Oddly, I’ve never been a huge fan of BLT sandwiches, but this is super appealing to me! I definitely prefer my pasta salads sans mayo. I love the roasted tomatoes in this!
Thank you!! The roasted tomatoes are definitely my favorite part… I go through and pick them out lol 🙂
I love how you turned the BLT into a pasta salad. What a great way to re-invent the dish. Thanks for sharing, and have a wonderful weekend! 😀
Thanks Kaila!! I love putting different twists on recipes 😀
A very bright and summery pasta salad. I pretty much love arugula and bacon in anything and everything- so you hit the right note for me! Perfect for a potluck or summer cookout… or with your fried chicken suggestion, of course! 😉 Happy Fiesta Friday & Happy 4th of July! 🙂
Thank you Josette!! I’m a huge fan of arugula, and of course love all things bacon 😀 Hope you had a great 4th of July today!
This sounds so good. Thanks for sharing with the Thursday Blog Hop!
Thank you Pam!! 😀
Going to add cukes and roasted red peppers (maybe black olive slices) to the salad. Make my own chicken (legs dusted with seasoned corn starch for crunch), pan – not deep fried. Cook in real butter (maybe put some under the skin). Oh my gobs – it’s delicious that way. And I know who touched it.
That sounds like some awesome additions Liz! Oh I hear you, most of the time, I like to make my own chicken, homemade is always amazing 🙂
I like my pasta salad mayo-free, so this looks perfect! I’ve never roasted cherry tomatoes, but they look so good, I’ll have to try it! #client
Thank you Sarah!! I hope you love this as much as we do 😀
This one hits ALL my notes, pasta, with bacon and roasted tomatoes. I love that is has a light dressing and is not heavy with mayo!! A keeper and with summer tomatoes fresh from our garden YUMMY!!!!
Thank you Aunt Sandie!! I’m so jealous you’ll have garden fresh tomatoes for this… it’ll make it insanely good 😀
That salad and the chicken both look delicious. I pass that deli section every time I walk into Walmart, which is about every other day, and I never think to get fried chicken! I will have to try it next time I am in there because my mouth is now watering too. Thanks, Amanda!
Thank you Becky!! Once I realized they had fried chicken there I was like “duh, you’ve walked past that about 100 times Amanda!”… so you’re definitely not alone 🙂