Peppered Bacon & Sweet Balsamic Pasta Salad
I typically go grocery shopping every Sunday. If for some reason I can’t make it on Sundays because we’ve had a busy weekend then I will go Monday night after the Hubs gets home from work so I can leave Princess P home with him. Before I go shopping I typically spend a few hours at least planning the menu for the week & checking sales at the store & coupon match-ups for those sales. Then add in checking Pinterest for meal ideas & my day is shot. That’s where the hours of time comes in, Pinterest sucks me in 🙂
This past weekend we spent Sunday celebrating Princess P’s 3rd birthday with family so I had no time to work on the menu or a list. I planned on just working on it Monday & then going shopping Monday night. But then I got this wild hair to at least head to the dollar store to grab what I needed from there & then I would just have to hit up the grocery store on Monday. Well once I got done at the dollar store, I got the additional crazy idea that I would just go ahead and get it all done now. No list, no plan, no coupons. Just up & go. I highly don’t recommend this because you end up forgetting vital things like toilet paper.
I sat in the parking lot of the grocery store jotting down some of the things I remembered we had in our pantry & fridge to use for meals so at least I wasn’t going in blind. I knew we had a box of pasta so I decided I would grab some veggies and a bottle of dressing and we’d have pasta salad one night.
When I made the pasta salad on Monday for our dinner, on a whim, I decided to fry up some of the peppered bacon we had & throw that in. I wasn’t overly confident on how all of the flavors would blend but it turned out great! The sweetness of the dressing was a great contrast to the spice of the bacon. This is definitely a recipe that will make another appearance on our weekly menu.
- 1 box (16 ounces) rotini pasta, cooked
- 1 medium cucumber, cut into half moons
- 1 box (16 ounces) grape tomatoes
- 1/2 cup chopped green onions
- 1 bottle (8 ounces) Kraft Sweet Balsamic Dressing
- 12 slices peppered bacon, cooked crisp
THIS RECIPE PROUDLY SHARED AT ANY OF THESE FABULOUS PARTIES
Jamie, Thanks for linking this delicious salad to Saturday Dishes. I must make this. Come back next Saturday when we feature ice cream.
Wishes for Tasty Dishes,
Linda @ Tumbleweed Contessa
Jaime, I love pasta salads and love trying different kinds – this sounds great! Thanks for sharing the recipe and am pinning. Happy Sunday!
I forget my list all of the time! If my son is home, I call him and have him read it to me 🙂 I like the addition of bacon, I will have to try that!
This is another reason I love pinterest! I can browse around for hours & then I wonder why I don’t get to bed before 2. The boyfriend has banned it from his place Haha. That looks yummy!
Lol, my husband doesn’t even ask anymore when I’m sitting on my phone for extended periods of time!!