Red, White & Blue Cheese Pasta Salad

 One of my favorite things to make for a BBQ is pasta salad.  I love that you can add pretty much anything to pasta and make it taste delicious.  Plus they are cool and refreshing on hot AZ summer days.  🙂  I thought it would be fun to put together a fun pasta salad perfect for 4th of July.  This red, white and blue cheese pasta salad will be a perfect side dish for your 4th of July parties and BBQs.

You don’t have to be a blue cheese lover to enjoy this pasta salad.  The flavor of the blue cheese isn’t too over powering and the little bit of fresh basil compliments this salad really well.

Red, White & Blue Cheese Pasta Salad

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Red, white and blue cheese pasta salad is a great summer side dish

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 box penne pasta
• 4 oz blue cheese
• 1 package cherry tomatoes
• 6-8 fresh basil leaves
• 1 bottle balsamic vinaigrette dressing
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 1 tsp. sugar

Instructions

1. Cook pasta according to package directions to al dente.
2. Slice tomatoes in half.
3. Thinly slice basil.
4. Once pasta is done, rinse with cool water and drain.
5. Add cooled pasta, tomatoes, basil, blue cheese, salt, pepper and sugar to a large bowl.
6. Pour 1/2 bottle of dressing over pasta and gently mix everything together.
7. The pasta will soak up a lot of the dressing.
8. I like to make it the day before and then add a little more dressing right before serving.

I was super shocked that my husband really liked this red, white and blue cheese pasta salad.  He doesn’t care for blue cheese but he loved this!

Here are some other pasta salads that you might enjoy:

Greek Pasta Salad

Pasta Salad

Happy Cooking!

Liz