Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad

I wanted to eat some chicken recently, but I wasn't quite ready to eat the Italian dressing thing again (though there's no particular reason why I wasn't - I just wanted to do something different with it this time). I was peeking around in my Fridge-of-Holding, and I remembered I had some Caesar dressing in there. I probably should use that up, since I honestly don't remember when I bought it. If you want to make your own Caesar dressing, here's my favourite recipe for it (with the extra bonus of other dressings as well). Anyway, I really like chicken caesar salads, but I didn't actually have any romaine lettuce. So I decided to turn it all into a pasta salad. It's more filling and stretches further this way too, which is also an extra bonus. Aside from the addition of pasta and the lack of lettuce, there are a couple other deviations from the normal Caesar-type thing, since I wanted to have some variance in texture. Hope you enjoy!

1/2 pound pasta, cooked according to package directions (I used gemelli)
1 skinless, boneless chicken breast
salt and pepper to taste
1 stalk celery, diced
1 carrot, diced
1/2 - 3/4 cup Caesar dressing
Extra parmesan shaved or grated for serving

Season chicken with salt and pepper, then cook in a non-stick skillet. Cool and cut into cubes. Combine with cooked and cooled pasta, celery, carrot and dressing. Toss well then chill before serving. Add extra parmesan when serving. Makes about 4 cups.

Comments

  1. OOh, I never thought of swapping out lettuce for pasta in "normal" salads. I bet that be a great change to a greek salad. And if you used something like orecchiette (sp) or medium shells it'd probably hold the veggies really well, too. Hmmm...

    Thanks for the idea!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, please let me know how it goes with a Greek salad! I think it might be really good with orzo too, even though it wouldn't catch the veggies at all. Great idea!

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