Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad
The easiest 3 ingredient lunch or dinner option. Only takes a few minutes. Is loaded with flavor. Totally delicious. You get crisp lettuce, crunchy croutons, hearty chicken, tender pasta, all bathed in a Caesar dressing, making it a light lunch that will fuel you for the whole day.
Serve with Garlic Bread Twists or Cheesy Garlic Bread for a great meal.
Some days just call for a recipe that is so stupid easy you can’t mess it up. But that also tastes amazing. And is filling, hearty, and wholesome. And this is that recipe. It is seriously the easiest recipe ever. But takes three simple ingredients and elevates them to a whole new level of delicious.
When it comes to pasta salad, we love to keep it simple, like this Easy Pesto Pasta Salad and this Caesar version is almost no effort, and so delicious.
What You Need to Make Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad
Intro to what you need with focus on it is eazy peazy and ingredients are easy to find
- Rotisserie Chicken, cut into chunks
- Cooked Pasta: Pick your favorite shape, I like bowties or fusilli
- Caesar Salad Kit: Pick your favorite brand and kind
How to Make Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad
You would think it would be a lot of work to make a chicken caesar pasta salad recipe with crunchy lettuce, salty pasta, tender juicy chicken, croutons, parmesan cheese, and caesar dressing. But it doesn’t. In fact, it is so simple but delicious.
Because all 3 of the ingredients for this recipe come pretty much ready to go, you just have to assemble it. So here is what you need to do:
- Cook pasta to al dente. You want it to be tender and delicious, but not mushy. When you are done cooking it, you want to do something you would normally never do, rinse it with cold water. You do this to stop the cooking process, and keep it from wilting your lettuce when you toss it all together.
- Next cut your rotisserie chicken up into chunks, or shred it.
- Assemble by dumping the pasta, the chicken, and the lettuce from your salad kit into a bowl, and toss it together with the provided caesar dressing. When it is all tossed together, add in the parmesan cheese, croutons, and black pepper. Give it a quick second toss. Then serve.
Serve With
This recipe is so perfect for an easy meal because it takes mere minutes to throw together, and I love eating it on its own or pairing it with:
Tips and Tricks
Making this recipe is Eazy Peazy, but here are a few tips for getting the best results every single time.
- Wait to assemble until just before eating. The dressing will make things soggy and less crisp the longer it sits. So if you plan to make ahead, just get all the ingredients ready separately, then assemble just before serving.
- Use your favorites. Your favorite chicken. Your favorite pasta. Your favorite caesar salad kit. This will insure you enjoy every last bite. If you have a favorite Caesar Salad dressing you love, swap it out.
- Dress to your preference. I typically just make the salad kit as is, since with the pasta and the chicken the dressing coats everything really nicely. But, if you like more or less dressing, adjust to your liking.
- Add extras. I have made this salad hundreds of times and love it as is, but if you have fresh garden tomatoes you want to throw in, or crisp cucumbers, go for it! You can customize to your heart’s content with add fresh vegetables.
Make Ahead and Storage
This is not a recipe you want to make ahead. It just isn’t as good if it sits too long. Most salads are not, unless you are talking something like this Italian Antipasto Pasta Salad. And the nice thing about this recipe is it is so easy to make you really do not need to make it ahead. But to make it even faster, here is what you can do.
How to make this recipe ahead of time:
- Cook your pasta ahead, drain, and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
- Cut your rotisserie chicken into chunks, and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
Then, when ready to serve.
- Take the cooked pasta, and cut chicken, and combine with the salad kit.
Other Great Recipes:
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Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 11.3 oz – 15 oz Caesar Salad Kit
- 2 cups Rotisserie Chicken chunked
- 8 ounces Pasta spiral, bowtie or whatever small shape you like best
Instructions
- Cook your pasta according to package directions to al dente. Drain. Rinse with cold water.
- Cut your rotisserie chicken into chunks or shreds.
- In a large bowl, add the lettuce from your salad kit, the pasta, and the chicken, as well as the dressing. Toss to coat everything in the dressing.
- Add in the parmesan, croutons, and pepper. Toss a couple of times.
- Serve immediately.
Our recipe card software calculates these nutrition facts based on averages for the above ingredients, different brands, and quality of produce/meats may have different nutritional information, always calculate your own based on the specific products you use in order to achieve accurate macros for this recipe.
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Rachael says