Easy Taco Pasta Salad Recipe – Perfect For Hot Summer Days!

Looking for an easy dinner that doesn’t heat up the kitchen? This easy taco pasta salad recipe makes a tasty one-dish meal that combines pasta, seasoned meat, fresh veggies and cheese into one hearty meal that’s perfect for busy summer nights, potlucks and quick family dinners.

This easy taco pasta salad recipe is one of my favorite summertime meals. When the weather gets hot, the last thing most of us want to do is spend hours cooking in the kitchen. It’s a nice change from hot meals, filling enough to serve as dinner all by itself, and made with simple ingredients you probably already have on hand.

This is one of those recipes that’s easy to adapt to whatever you have in the fridge. Have leftover taco meat from taco night? Toss it in. Have some rotisserie chicken that needs to be used up? That works too. You can add extra vegetables, use whatever cheese you have in the fridge, and adjust the dressing to suit your family’s tastes. It’s an easy way to turn odds and ends into a meal everyone will actually eat.

Taco Pasta Salad Recipe Meal Plan:

Taco Pasta Salad
Cornbread
Carrot, celery, and bell pepper sticks
No-Bake Cheesecake Dip

No-Bake Cheesecake Dip

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This creamy, fluffy no-bake cheesecake dessert dip comes together in just minutes with four simple ingredients! Serve it with fresh fruit, pound cake, angel food cake, cookies, or graham crackers for an easy dessert that’s perfect for parties, holidays, or a quick family treat.

• Author: Jill Cooper

Ingredients

1 (3 oz.) package instant pudding mix, any flavor*
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup sour cream
1 (8 oz.) container whipped topping, thawed

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the pudding mix and milk until smooth and slightly thickened.
2. Stir in the sour cream until fully combined.
3. Gently fold in the whipped topping until no streaks remain.
4. Cover and refrigerate for at least 5 hours, or overnight, to allow the flavors to blend and the mixture to set.

Notes

Serving Suggestions

Serve as a dip with:

• Fresh strawberries, grapes, pineapple, or apple slices
• Angel food cake cubes
• Pound cake cubes
• Vanilla wafers
• Graham crackers
• Pretzels for a sweet-and-salty treat

Notes

• Vanilla, cheesecake, white chocolate, banana cream, and chocolate pudding all work well in this recipe.
• For an extra-rich dessert, use full-fat sour cream.
• Store leftovers covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

*You can substitute cooked pudding if desired. Prepare according to package directions and allow it to cool completely before mixing with the sour cream and whipped topping.

For more quick and easy recipes, like this easy taco pasta salad recipe, to make easy dinners fast, check out our cookbooks!

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Easy Kitchen Tips:

• When making cornbread, I grease a cast iron skillet with bacon grease. Then, I heat it in an oven at 400°  until it is really hot. It should sizzle when a couple of drops of water are dropped into it. Watch it carefully until it is ready. Then, I pour the cornbread batter into it, adjust the oven temperature to what is called for by the recipe directions and continue baking.
• Store cleaned celery upright in a wide glass or cup filled half full of water in the fridge until you are ready to use it. The Victorians made special vases for this very purpose. This is a good way to store other things like parsley or cleaned carrots.
• Cleaning the microwave. Sometimes we make things so much more difficult and expensive than they need to be. Here is an example:The actual tip says, “Heat water and vinegar to clean the microwave.”
  
  But here’s the easy way: You don’t need to bother with the vinegar at all. It really doesn’t work any better than plain water. If you keep on top of cleaning your microwave, you can make it even easier by heating up a cup of water for tea. Then you can wipe the microwave just before you sit down and enjoy your tea. Keep it simple!