This creamy pasta salad is packed with flavor and is the ultimate summer dish. It can be made with regular or gluten-free pasta, and you will find plenty of tips for how to make a great gluten-free pasta salad below. It’s incredibly flavorful with smoked sausage, cheddar cheese, fresh veggies, and it’s all wrapped up in a creamy basil dressing.
This pasta salad has been one of my most made recipes for 20 years now. It’s an all-around crowd pleaser, and everyone always wants the recipe.
Watch How To Make Creamy Pasta Salad
It’s perfect for picnics, BBQs, potlucks, or as meal prep for your lunches through the work week.
It’s my go-to recipe in the summer to make no matter what the occasion is. I’ve made it for family when they’ve been in the hospital, for my best friend when she got married, and even a 5-pound batch for my dad’s buddy for a hunting trip.
It’s just that kind of recipe that goes the distance no matter what the occasion. So the next time you need a guaranteed smash hit, this creamy pasta salad is for you.
Ingredients & Substitutions
- Sausages – smoked sausages make the best-tasting pasta salad. I’ve been use the Organic Smoked Beef Sausage from Kiolbassa that Costco has been carrying and it has great flavor. You can also use grilled chicken, Italian sausage, or andouille.
- Cheese – any cubed cheese you like in pasta salad works, we like aged cheddar cheese.
- Pasta – both regular and gluten-free pasta work in this salad. Farfalle, fusilli, and penne are my favorite shapes to use.
- Veggies – a mix of cherry tomatoes and crunchy cucumber makes the perfect juicy, fresh flavor.
- Dressing – the dressing is a cross between vinaigrette and mayo. The farm-fresh egg makes the basil vinaigrette super creamy, but it can be omitted for the mayo option listed in the recipe notes.
- Basil – is our favorite fresh herb for this pasta salad, and there isn’t a good substitute. In the height of summer, I add double and triple the amount called for when I have basil in my herb garden. Chives make a nice spring flavor, but there’s nothing like basil.
How to make this recipe step by step
Step 1: Start by prepping all the ingredients you need for the pasta salad. Quarter and thinly slice the cucumbers, half or quarter the cherry tomatoes, and cut the cheese into very small cubes.
I buy smoked sausages, cook them according to the label’s instructions, then cut them in half and thinly slice them up.
Step 2: Next, make the creamy basil dressing in the blender while the pasta cooks.
Step 3: When the pasta is al dente, drain, then rinse under cold water to stop the cooking process.
Step 4: Add the prepped sausage, cheese, veggies, cooked pasta, and creamy basil dressing to a large bowl and toss the pasta salad to combine.
Season to taste with sea salt and serve or refrigerate up to eight hours. For long-term storage, refer to the tips below.
Ways to serve this
- Take this creamy pasta salad on your next picnic, barbecue, or potluck.
- This pasta salad also makes great packed lunches for work or weekend adventures. It is our favorite hiking lunch of all time!
FAQ’s
Add mayonnaise or sour cream to create a creamy pasta salad dressing. My creamy pasta salad is made like homemade mayonnaise with a raw egg, which makes it ultra creamy, but mayo can be substituted.
It’s key to heavily salt the cooking water for pasta, making it more flavorful. The pasta takes on salt while it cooks and becomes perfectly seasoned. This cannot be replicated by salting the sauce or dressing more!
Storing leftovers
- To store – If you’re using regular pasta, this pasta salad will keep well for up to 4 to 5 days in the fridge. If you use gluten-free pasta, it will keep at best for 1 day.
- Make ahead – just before you’re ready to eat it, add a little water and a pinch of sea salt and toss it with the pasta salad to make the dressing creamy again. You don’t want to add water any sooner than needed because the pasta will reabsorb it.
Tips & Tricks
- As you prep the ingredients, keep in mind you want the different elements to be small and bite-sized. That way, you have more fresh veggies, sausage, and cheese with every bite of pasta.
- When you use gluten-free pasta to make pasta salad, overcook it slightly. If you cook gluten-free pasta to al dente, it will be chewy when it’s cold in pasta salad.
- 3 ways to make pasta salad creamy: My original dressing for this recipe contains a raw egg for the creamiest dressing you’ve ever tasted. However, if this is of concern, I developed a variation that uses hemp seeds, which has been a great success too. You can also add mayonnaise or a bit of sour cream.
- I’ve done all sorts of variations over the years with different meats and cheeses, but I always come back to my original version as it’s written below. If you’d like to change it up, I’ve used Italian sausage, grilled chicken, 3-cheese Italian sausage, chicken sausages, and andouille.
- Any smoky sausage with a bit of spice has always been mine and everyone else’s favorite, with grilled chicken coming in a close second. In the summertime, I make this with handfuls of basil, so feel free to double or triple the amount of basil called for if you’re a fellow basil fan! And… finally, I like fresh corn for a variation sometimes.
Dietary Options & Substitutions
- Dairy-free – omit the cheese or use your favorite dairy-free cheese.
- Vegetarian – omit the sausage and use a vegetarian cheese.
- Vegan – try making my Grilled Veggie Pesto Pasta Salad, which is naturally vegan without lots of substitutions.
More Pasta Recipe Inspiration
I really hope you enjoy this best Creamy Pasta Salad recipe! If you do get a chance to make this, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Creamy Pasta Salad
INGREDIENTS
- 12 ounces pasta - see notes
- 1 pound smoked sausage links - or Italian sausage, cooked chicken
- 1 1/2 cups aged sharp cheddar cheese - cubed, 5 ounces
- 2 cups cherry or grape tomatoes - cut into bite sized pieces, 12 ounces
Creamy Basil Dressing:
- 1 farm fresh egg - see notes
- 1/3 cup white wine vinegar - see notes for 1 pound pasta
- 1/2 cup basil leaves - packed, 1 ounce
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1 cup olive oil - or avocado oil
- 1 tsp sea salt - or to taste
- 1/2 tsp black pepper - or to taste
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat a grill over high heat, (you can also pan fry or oven roast the sausages if you’d like). When the grill has reached 400ºF, place the sausages on the grill and turn the heat down to medium. Cook until the sausages are completely done, mine come pre-cooked so it only takes 5 minutes.
- If you're using gluten free pasta, cook it just a tiny bit past al dente, (it's important to use salted water for flavor in the pasta). You can test the pasta's doneness by taking a piece out and running it under cold water, when it's no longer unpleasantly chewy, it's ready. If you use regular pasta, cook to al dente. When the pasta is cooked, drain it, and run the pasta under cold water until it's cooled.
- While the pasta and sausages cook, prep the cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and cubed cheese.
- Place the cooked & cooled pasta, sausage, cheddar cheese, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes into a large serving bowl.
- For the dressing, place everything but the oil into a blender and blend until it's mostly smooth with small pieces of green basil floating around.
- With the blender running on low, slowly add the oil in, increasing the speed as you go until all the oil has been added and the dressing is creamy.
- Toss the pasta salad mixture with the dressing. This salad is best if it’s allowed to sit for an hour or so in the refrigerator so that the flavors can sink in, but it’s also good served right away.
oops! Silly me – I didn’t mean to include my full name. Feel free to shorten it to ‘Rachel’.
Thanks!
No problem!
Hats off to you, Kari, this recipe is really good. I have been cooking GF for almost 15 years and rarely find a GF pasta recipe that people will go back for seconds – this might be the first time.
Yes to the Dellalo pasta in salted water – great flavor, texture and size.
The smokiness in the sausage is also so good and the cherry tomatoes taste so bright.
And although the dressing makes a lot (I had about 1/3 cup leftover), I have to say that the ingredients (used the hemp hearts) and proportions are spot on. So yummy!
I am dairy-free so I reserved some before I added the cheese for my family. We all loved it!
Really, really good. Thank you for sharing!
I’m so glad you enjoyed this one, it really is our favorite still even after trying out so many other pasta salads!
THIS SALAD.
I remember you left this when you guys left some treats in our honeymoon suite. SO GOOD.
YES.
I’d completely forgotten about that, this pasta salad has gotten me up many a mountain and through too many work days to count!
This salad is inviting me big time! I am hungry again after dinner! 🙂
I always have room for at least a couple bites of this salad, I just never get tired of it!
Love the mountaintop photo!! What a great idea to pack this delicious salad in ziplocks for your outdoor adventures! Love this post!
One of these days I’ll be organized enough to take photos of what goes into our cooler when we go away for the weekend! We started using ziplocks because they’re such a space saver, and you don’t have to do any dishes while you’re camping, (which is a major bonus for me).
“the pictures really don’t do it justice at all”, what are you talking about Kari. Your pictures, as always, are phenomenal as so does this pasta. I love how rich and creamy it looks.
I also love the picture of you sitting on the mountaintop: you look rad!
Thanks for the wonderful compliment, but I guess I thought it just looks like so much less than how it tastes (imo)! I hope you get to try this sometime, I think you’ll love it! 🙂
This has been my go to anytime salad since you came up with this. I’m sure I’ve eaten pounds of this over the years and I still love it. I like to put cucumbers in it too. I know lots of people who will be glad to get this recipe.
I forgot to put a little note in there that I add cucumbers and sometimes fresh corn in the summertime – thanks for reminding me!