Make It Your Own Boxed Pasta Salad

Hey guys! I hope you all had a great 4th of July celebrations with your friends and family! We all got together with some friends, had a fish fry, kids played together, and had fun with cheap grocery store fireworks as well as a large firework display at a nearby park. Tons of fun! I brought a bottle of wine, a pasta salad, and some dessert. Lots of great food!

I love making pasta salads. They are so easy and fun, because the combinations are endless. Homemade pasta salad is easy, but there are a lot of great boxed mixes out there to have in your pantry for those nights when you need something fast to throw together. Here I took a couple of boxes of Simply Pasta Salad (there are lots of different kinds out there, but I just stuck to the regular Italian flavor) and added in a few fresh ingredients. I added halved cherry tomatoes, fresh cubed mozzarella, and sliced black olives (kalamata).

You could totally add in fresh basil, grilled chicken, shrimp, broccoli, chopped bacon, pesto sauce, etc. Be creative and use what you have already in the fridge! Make extra to have enough leftovers for lunch. This is a great summer meal!