Pasta Recipe
Cheese Tortellini Pasta
Delicious pasta that is quick, easy and can last for a week in the refrigerator. Using salad dressing and cheese tortellini can be easily tailored to your preferences.
There is nothing better than a cold salad on hot summer day, or as a side dish with whatever you’ve grilled. Now you know as a loyal follower, I have never posted about food or recipes on my blog. But when we had our wedding reception, two friends brought over a cheese tortellini pasta salad. I knew after the first bite, that I would have to share this recipe with you. I hesitated for weeks to share this because this blog mainly is about gardening, tablescapes and home decor.
But after months of thinking about it, and knowing I was making this for my sisters 4th of July BBQ, I ran out of excuses. So here it is!
INGREDIENTS (Serves up to 12 people)
2 packages of three cheese tortellini
3 bell peppers (I went with multi color)
1 can black olives
1 can green olives
1 block of mozzarella
1 8 oz bag of shredded 6 cheese Italian
1 12 oz package of pepperoni
1 bottle of Olive Garden Italian dressing
Salt and pepper to taste
DIRECTIONS:
Cook cheese tortellini as directed on the package.
Rinse with cold water
Chop bell peppers (chop any size you like, we like it chunky)
Slice the pepperoni rounds in half
add the bell peppers, pepperoni and both cans of olives
add 1/4 of the jar of Olive Garden Italian Dressing. (you can use your favorite vinaigrette or any dressing your family prefers)
Give it a good toss and put in the fridge to chill for 1 to 2 hours.
Once it’s chilled, chop the mozzarella (I use the whole block, I love mozzarella) and toss it in with the shredded 6 Italian cheese (I use 1/2 of the shredded)
Add more dressing (Your preference as to how much, I usually use about 1/2 to 3/4’s of the bottle)
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Toss and chill, that’s it!
I have made different variations of this over the past couple of months. In the past, I’ve also added green onion, basil or parsley. There are so many ways you can tweak this to suit your taste.
Well, if you’ll excuse me. I hear hubby in the kitchen picking at this and it’s supposed to be for tomorrows BBQ!
