Best ever Buffalo Chicken Pasta salad with a buffalo vinaigrette type dressing (no mayo or heavy dressings), chicken, veggies, and blue cheese. I have lots of “buffalo” type recipes and this is one of my faves! When I asked my Snappy Gourmet friends on Facebook earlier this summer for recipes they’d like to see, someone suggested a Buffalo Pasta Salad. Unfortunately, we’ve been traveling a lot this summer so my cooking has been minimal (how many days until school starts up again??). I finally got around to this recipe this week! This pasta salad has a light taste and would be great as a side dish or main dish. Perfect for dinner, tailgating, or a picnic and it’s great HOT or COLD. It would be great with shrimp, or skip the meat all together for a vegetarian dish. Use your favorite pasta shape and veggies and make it all your own! Have a recipe request? Join my Facebook page or Contact Me and let me know! Can’t make any promises, but I will do requests from time-to-time.
I love Buffalo just about anything! There are so many different kinds of hot sauces and many of them are great for different dishes. For “Buffalo” dishes, I like to use Frank’s Hot Sauce. It’s widely available and adds a real buffalo type flavor without being overly spicy. Instead of covering this salad with a heavy blue cheese dressing, I decided to make more of a vinaigrette dressing and add crumbled blue cheese to the salad. Adding a little Ranch flavored seasoing would also be a good addition to the dressing. This Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad turned out way better than I thought and definitely a keeper. Hope you enjoy!
The only time consuming part of this recipe is cutting up the veggies. I like to peel the outside of the celery so that it’s not so stringy. A little tip I learned years ago.
You can use any precooked chicken, but I like to use leftover precooked boneless chicken breasts. You could chop up a rotisserie chicken, substitute precooked shrimp (peeled and deveined), or leave the meat out all together.
I would say the dressing is mild to moderately spiciness. If you want it spicier use less olive oil, and more hot sauce.
Mix the pasta, veggies, cheese, and dressing all together. You can serve it right away, or refrigerate until ready to serve. If the pasta salad dries up a little after being in the refrigerator add a little more hot sauce and/or olive oil.
Frank’s Hot Sauce is my sauce for choice for this recipe.
This Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad is perfect for a picnic, tailgating, or potluck! Mmmmm….
I’m just a poor blogger and all I ask for is a little love to keep me going. 
So please don’t forget to ENTER my current giveaways for some great prizes! If you like this recipe, please follow me on FACEBOOK or TWITTER. You can also sign-up to receive my recipes and posts by EMAIL or RSS. Thanks for visiting Snappy Gourmet!
| Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad |
|
Print
|
- 8 ounces uncooked pasta (such as mezze penne)
- ½ cup Frank’s hot sauce
- ½ cup olive oil
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon onion powder
- ¼ teaspoon celery salt
- 2 cups precooked chicken, chopped
- 1½ cups crumbled blue cheese
- 1 cup carrots, chopped
- 1 cup celery, chopped
- Cook pasta according to package directions to al dente. Drain and rinse thoroughly with cold water.
- Meanwhile, whisk together hot sauce, oil, lemon juice, garlic powder, onion powder, and celery salt in small bowl until well combined.
- Place pasta in large mixing bowl. Stir in chicken, blue cheese, carrots, and celery. Slowly mix in dressing until desired amount.
- Refrigerate until ready to serve.
SNAPPY SUBSTITUTIONS: Use any shape pasta you’d like. Instead of chicken, you could use precooked small shrimp (peeled and deveined) or leave out the meat all together for a vegetarian option. A little ranch flavored seasoning mix would also be good in the dressing. Red onions and/or scallions would also be a good addition.
(For more recipes visit Snappy Gourmet at http://www.snappygourmet.com to sign up for an email/RSS subscription or visit Snappy Gourmet on Facebook or Twitter)
This is such a fun salad! Great job coming up with the recipe!
Thanks Erin!
This sounds so refreshing for a make ahead pasta dish with a salad. I have a great Buffalo Chicken appetizer dip that everyone loves. I’m sure you have it. You can serve it with nachos, crackers or fritos. If you don’t have it, and I can e-mail it to you.
Donna Roof
Thanks Donna! I do have a recipe for a few versions of Buffalo Chicken dips, but thank you! Love it with fritos! Now you’re getting me hungry!
I’ve had such a craving for buffalo chicken lately. This would definitely satisfy it!
I hope the buffalo pasta salad satisfies your buffalo craving. We like all things buffalo around here!
I’m gonna make this but it’s definitely missing onions!
I totally agree Jeff! I added onions to my personal version and added a note that they would be a good addition but I get accused of adding onions to too much! LOL
This pasta salad with buffalo chicken flavours sounds so good!
Oh, definitely Frank’s!! Anything Buffalo requires the real stuff. Harrison like Frank’s on just about anything. Salad looks great!
Angela, I could put Frank’s on just about anything too!
I love chocolates! this is great recipe, gorgeous photos as well. thanks for sharing!
Your beautiful photos really show off what a delicious pasta salad this is! I’ll be making this tonight, I’m sure my hubby will enjoy this. thanks for the share!
Hope you enjoy the pasta salad!
Will have to try this salad and soon! Looks yummy!! Franks sauce is a staple in our house. Relatives from Buffalo swear by it. Thanks!!
Thanks Pam! Hope you enjoy my Buffalo Pasta Salad! Frank’s is definitely good stuff!!
This is such an awesome salad! I made it for a party and people were fighting over the last little bit! Thanks for sharing.
Oh Brie,that is so sweet! Thank you so much for letting me know you enjoyed my Buffalo Pasta Salad! You made my day!
I have finally had the chance to make this, one word…Yummy! We love Buffalo ‘anything’ in my house, and Franks Hot Sauce can always be found in my pantry. I am excited to try this with shrimp also, possibly adding a few bacon bits with the Blue Cheese!!! Thanks, and keep up the great work. Your photos are the best, heard you got a new camera
Hi Kelly! So glad you like the Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad! I’m also a fan of anything “buffalo” and actually just bought another bottle of Frank’s today. I think I’m addicted to it!
Thanks again!
Thanks for posting this I just had to Pin it!! It looks so yummy and I’ll just love the Frank’s in there!
I enjoyed this dish a lot. Thank you so much. I ended up sautéing the carrots, celery (and some onion) to soften them up some because I’m too lazy/unskilled (take your pick) to dice them as nice and small as you did. It was delicious though, I’m excited for the leftovers.
Thanks so much Jim! Glad to hear you enjoyed it! If I didn’t have to take pictures of my veggies for my blog, my dicing would not look that nice either.
Thanks again!
Thanks for the recipe! Going to make this for a tailgate tomorrow!
Thanks Lisa, hope you all enjoy it!
This was SO good!! We left out the celery and carrots because we were eating it hot (and my husband despises celery), but I will definitely try it cold this summer with them added in. Thanks for a yummy and quick recipe!