One bite of this Devilish Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad and you’ll be hooked! This creamy pasta salad is a side dish that can also be eaten as a main meal!
We love making killer side dishes like this pasta salad! Be sure and check out our famous BAKED BEAN recipe, loaded with bacon and ground beef or a CLASSIC POTATO SALAD that’s always a hit!
Blow Them Away With This Side Dish Recipe!
You have your basic pasta salad recipes that are totally fine. Then you might make an ITALIAN VERSION of pasta salad to kick things up a little…
But now you have this Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad.
And let me tell you, it is going to blow you away. There’s so much going on in this pasta salad that it really can be served as a main course as well as a side dish.
Chicken, bacon, hard boiled eggs and some celery for crunch, tossed with a mild buffalo dressing that is crazy addicting.
Side dishes like this one can really make a party – this is the recipe that everyone will be asking for!
Ingredients You Need To Make This Pasta Salad
- Elbow Pasta: You can really use any small, tube shaped pasta here. Examples could be small rigatoni, pipette, orecchiette, or rotini.
- Hard Boiled Eggs: The yolks in the hard boiled eggs add flavor and creaminess to the sauce for this pasta salad.
- Bacon: For crunch and all that bacon goodness!
- Celery: Again, we like the balance between soft and crunchy, so this is another crunchy ingredient
- Cooked Chicken: A great use for leftover or rotisserie chicken
- Buffalo Wing Sauce: Not to be confused with hot sauce, buffalo wing sauce is miler than hot sauce so it just adds that delicious, buffalo wing flavor without tons of heat.
- Mayonnaise: Because what is a pasta salad without mayo???
How Do I Make This Pasta Salad?
The basic ingredients that go into most pasta salad recipes can vary. But mainly the recipe consists of some form of short tube pasta, such as elbow macaroni tossed in a mayonnaise based dressing.
Celery, onion and hard boiled eggs are also very common add ins.
For this pasta salad recipe I added chicken, bacon, celery, chopped hard boiled eggs, elbow macaroni. Try grabbing a rotisserie chicken from the store to really save you some time making this recipe!
Rotisserie chicken is such a huge time saver, if we don’t have leftover chicken in the refrigerator we usually grab a couple chickens from the store.
Can You Make Pasta Salad Ahead Of Time?
Obviously, with a pasta salad like this buffalo chicken pasta salad (or any pasta salad really) it’s going to taste the best when it’s first made.
Definitely give it a couple of hours to sit in the refrigerator to let the flavors combine, but the day of is always the best.
What you can do is prepare the dressing separately from the elbow macaroni and the rest of the ingredients, then when you’re ready to serve you can toss the ingredients together.
If you do have leftovers, you can also make another batch of the dressing and add it to the pasta salad. Don’t worry, you can use that creamy buffalo dressing on tons of other things!
Dip your vegetables in it or chicken fingers, use it as a sandwich spread…or even as a regular salad dressing!
PIN IT!
Looking For More Pasta Recipes?
- Brown Butter Lobster Roll Pasta
- Crab Cake Pasta Salad
- Easy Penne Vodka
- Garlic Bread Pasta
- Jumbo Scallops with Tuscan Spaghetti
Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 10 1x
This crazy addicting pasta salad can be served as a side dish or the main course!
Ingredients
- 1 pound elbow macaroni, cooked and rinsed with cold water
- 6 hard boiled eggs, chopped
- 2 cups diced celery
- 3 cups cooked chicken, diced (leftover chicken works great or you can grab a rotisserie chicken)
- 1 pound bacon, cooked and chopped
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- 1/2 cup mild buffalo wing sauce
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon fresh black pepper
- 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
- Fresh parsley, chopped (for garnish)
Instructions
- Add the macaroni, eggs, celery, chicken and bacon to a large bowl and mix together to combine.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, buffalo wing sauce, salt, pepper and dijon mustard.
- Pour the sauce over the pasta salad and stir to combine.
- Cover the pasta salad and refrigerate and for at least an hour, then toss again right before serving.
- Top with fresh chopped parsley before serving.
- Category: side dishes
- Method: stove top
- Cuisine: American
What brand of Buffalo Sauce do you use? I always heard that Pasta and Potato salads should be made the day before so the flavors could meld together in the fridge… surprised to see you recommend making on the same day and only chilling for two hours.
We use Sweet Baby Rays Mild Buffalo Wing Sauce. And you can certainly make this pasta salad the day before if that’s your preference. I prefer making it at least a couple of hours before or in the morning so that the sauce stays nice and creamy, a pasta salad made a day ahead of time tends to be drier as the pasta will absorb some of the sauce, but you do you!