This simple pesto pasta salad with chicken is flavor-packed, high-protein, and done in 20 minutes! It's equal parts perfect for serving a crowd (think picnics or potlucks) as it is for meal prepping lunches through out the week.
Pesto has a special way of making the simplest ingredients taste like a perfectly cohesive, rich, and flavorful dish in mere minutes. And this pesto pasta salad with chicken is no exception! With chicken already cooked, you can easily throw this together in 20 minutes or less, and you've got a protein-packed, healthy pasta salad that tastes like a gourmet deli pasta salad.
P.S. Don't worry if you have extra pesto on hand after making this. I've got you covered with pesto potato salad and a warm spring roasted veggie pasta with pesto!
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Key Ingredients
- Pasta - Small pasta with crevices to hold the pasta is best! Think fusilli, rotini, bowtie, or cavatappi.
- Pesto - After years of making pesto pasta recipes, I almost always go with homemade pesto or fresh pesto from the store (the kind in the refrigerated sections). When using store bought, I love the Trader Joe's kale and cashew pesto (vegan) or Costco's pesto. That said, any pesto will work!
- Chicken - Use your leftover grilled chicken breast in summer, leftover whole roasted chicken, or buy a rotisserie chicken. If needed, you can cook and cool some chicken.
- Sun-dried tomatoes - I recommend jarred sun-dried tomatoes here because they've been marinating in that delicious olive oil. I love Mezzetta sun-dried tomatoes because they're in most stores and don't have chemical additives.
Please see the recipe card for full ingredients & quantities.
Substitutions & Variations
This chicken pesto pasta salad is meant to be simple and flexible so that you can adapt as needed. Here are some ways to modify:
- Vegan/vegetarian option - Remove the chicken to make this a vegetarian pasta salad. To make it vegan, use a vegan pesto (like my vegan parsley walnut pesto) and omit the chicken. Feel free to add in another plant-based protein such as chickpeas.
- High protein - This is already a protein-packed pasta salad, but using legume pasta or high-protein pasta will add even more. Legume pasta is pasta made from legume-based flours such as chickpea or lentil flours, so it's gluten free as well.
- More veggies - Stir in some arugula or spinach just before serving, add chopped oven-roasted bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, red onion, peas, or artichokes.
How to Make Pesto Pasta Salad with Chicken
Step 1: Fill a medium pot with water (enough to cover a box of dry pasta by an inch or two), and salt generously. Bring to a rolling boil, then add pasta. Cook on medium-high until the pasta is cooked past al dente. Reserve ½ cup of the pasta water, then drain and rinse the pasta briefly with cool water to remove starchy residue.
Step 2: Add the cooked pasta to a large bowl and toss with fresh pesto to fully coat.
Step 3: Add in the chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, and fresh basil. Stir everything together to coat with pesto. Add in about ¼ cup of the reserved pasta water and stir into the pasta salad to help the pesto distribute and cling to ingredients.
Step 4: Top with shredded parmesan and serve immediately or chill until ready to serve! I love to toss in arugula or chopped spinach just before serving to pack in more veggies and fresh flavor.
Tips for Success
- Cook pasta PAST al dente by a few minutes. I know the box instructions say otherwise, but this is a cold pesto pasta salad, so the noodles will harden as it chills in the fridge. After making many pasta salads, I find that cooking the pasta longer than the box says helps it stay soft and moist after sitting in the fridge. Soft, luscious noodles > hard, crusty noodles, all day!
- Pasta water. ¼-cup to ½-cup splash of starchy pasta water helps the pesto distribute and cling to all the ingredients, and also helps keep our pasta salad from becoming dry. I keep a measuring glass right next to my pot on the stove so that I don't forget before draining.
- Be generous with the pesto. The pesto is our main sauce, and it's key to preventing a dry pasta salad! If you add more to this salad - be it veggies, pasta, or chicken - be sure to increase the pesto accordingly.
FAQs
I recommend enjoying this pasta within five days of making it.
Place pasta in an airtight container in the fridge and serve as needed. I love making it in a large glass or stainless steel bowl that comes with a lid, so that I don't have to dirty up another dish to store.
Not at all! I often replace it with chickpeas or a different type of veggie, such as roasted red peppers, garlic roasted tomatoes, fresh cherry tomatoes, or artichokes. If you omit chicken and still want to pack a protein punch, try a legume pasta such as chickpea or lentil. I use this in my olive tapenade tuna pasta salad and it tastes delicious!
📖 Recipe
Simple Pesto Pasta Salad with Chicken
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: ~6 cups
Description
This simple pesto pasta salad with chicken tastes like a gourmet deli pasta salad and comes together in 20 minutes or less! It's packed with protein and can easily take on more veggies. Meal prep it for lunches all week, or share it as a potluck dish to serve a crowd.
Ingredients
- 1 lb. package pasta (I love rotini, fusilli, bowties, or cavatappi)
- ½ cup fresh pesto
- 2 cups cooked chicken, cut into cubes
- 1 cup kalamata olives, drained and sliced
- 1 8-ounce jar sun-dried tomatoes packed in olive oil, drained
- ½ cup parsley or basil, chopped
- ⅓ cup parmesan, finely shredded
- Optional but recommended: arugula or spinach for serving
Instructions
- Cook pasta. Fill a medium-large sized pot with enough water to cover pasta by a couple inches. Generously salt the water (I use a couple teaspoons) and bring to a rolling boil. Add the pasta and cook on medium-high heat until past al dente. Read the box instructions to find al dente, and then cook for a couple more minutes. Important: Scoop out ½ cup of the pasta water and set aside, then drain and briefly rinse the pasta with cold water to remove the starch.
- Toss pasta in pesto. Once pasta is drained and rinsed, add to a large bowl with the pesto. Toss to fully coat and get the pesto in all those noodle nooks and crannies.
- Add in other ingredients. Add in the chicken, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and herbs. Stir everything together to coat in pesto. To help the pesto spread and cling to the ingredients, add in a splash of the reserved pasta water (I usually do 2-4 tablespoons).
- Chill or serve. Top with parmesan and serve immediately or chill until ready to eat. I love this pasta salad cold and served over a bed of fresh arugula or greens.
Notes
- Rinsing pasta. We want to rinse the pasta with cool water to help stop the cooking process and remove any starchy residue that will cause noodles to stick together. However, just a few seconds should do it - if the pasta is still lukewarm instead of ice cold, the pesto spread around it easily.
- Cooking past al dente. For chilled pasta salads, it helps to cook pasta al dente as pasta hardens in the fridge. This helps prevent a dry pasta salad!
- Serve with greens. My favorite veggie to add to this pasta salad is fresh greens, but they wilt quickly when this salad is stored in the fridge. Instead, I love serving this pasta salad on a bed of arugula, spinach, or mixed greens.
- Prep Time: 10
- Cook Time: 10
- Category: Pasta Salad
- Method: Combine
- Cuisine: Italian
Nutrition
- Serving Size: ~1.5 cups
- Calories: 512
- Sugar: 3.4 g
- Sodium: 367.6 mg
- Fat: 16.8 g
- Saturated Fat: 3.5 g
- Carbohydrates: 62.6 g
- Fiber: 8.7 g
- Protein: 32.2 g
- Cholesterol: 58.4 mg
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