Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad

16 servings
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes

Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad with just a handful of ingredients will be the most popular side dish at your summer bbq events and picnics!

Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad with just a handful of ingredients will be the most popular side dish at your summer bbq events and picnics!Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad is a take on one of my favorite baked pastas, Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Bake. This is a cold chicken and bacon pasta recipe vs the warm baked version with all that delicious cheese.

Many pasta salads are made with mayo or with a mix of mayo and ranch dip dressing. This pasta salad is made with ranch dressing instead (even lite ranch tastes great in this recipe). This pasta salad is so easy and quick to make you’ll love adding it to your menus.

While this recipe is absolutely delicious cold, you can certainly microwave the bowl and serve it warm for dinner too. This recipe is not only for the bbq and summer. The cheddar cheese will melt and help meld all the flavors together.

Easy and quick Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad.

The best part about this pasta salad is how incredibly easy it is to put together. Don’t question if that means it won’t be as delicious as a more difficult to make one. There really isn’t a weak link in this salad. Cream cheese? Cheddar Cheese? Chicken? Bacon? Pasta? Ranch?! It could only be better if served in a giant garlic bread boat (wow, I need to eat a vegetable to get these thoughts out of my head!).

We love this Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad so much we've made it twice this week!

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Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad

Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad with just a handful of ingredients will be the most popular side dish at your summer bbq events and picnics!
Yield 16 servings
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes
Course Main Course
Cuisine American-Italian
Author Sabrina Snyder

Ingredients
 

  • 2 chicken breasts boneless skinless
  • 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon cracked black pepper
  • 2 tablespoons canola oil
  • 4 ounces cream cheese room temperature
  • 8 ounces bacon cooked and crumbled
  • 8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese diced finely in ½ inch cubes
  • 1 cup ranch dressing
  • 1 pound cooked fusilli pasta

Instructions

  • Butterfly the chicken breasts open, cutting them to be the same shape but half as thick.
  • Add salt and pepper to the chicken breasts.
  • Add canola oil to your large skillet and heat on high heat.
  • Add to the pan and sear for 3-5 minutes.
  • Flip the chicken and cook on the other side.
  • Remove from the pan and let cool.
  • Chop the chicken into 1 inch cubes.
  • In a large bowl add the cream cheese and ranch dressing and mix well.
  • Add the chicken bacon, cheddar cheese, ranch dressing and pasta.
  • Toss together until well coated.

Nutrition

Calories: 306kcal | Carbohydrates: 10g | Protein: 14g | Fat: 23g | Saturated Fat: 8g | Cholesterol: 55mg | Sodium: 474mg | Potassium: 178mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 255IU | Vitamin C: 0.8mg | Calcium: 118mg | Iron: 0.7mg
Keyword: Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad

The perfect side dish to your summer bbq is Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad!

We love this Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad so much we've made it twice this week!
Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad with just a handful of ingredients will be the most popular side dish at your summer bbq events and picnics!

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. If you enjoyed the recipe and would like to publish it on your own site, please re-write it in your own words, and link back to my site and recipe page. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

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Comments

  1. I was so on board to make this until I saw cream cheese in recipe, I hate it, is there anything I could sub for cream cheese?

  2. I made this but I added green onion and black olives. It was delicious! Highly recommend this recipe! ???

  3. I tried this recipe today and added a saute’d onion (which I add to almost all recipes)
    It was really good. Thank you for this recipe

  4. Very bland, dry and flavorless. I even added garlic powder, salt, pepper, white balsamic vinegar. Hubby said the cream cheese gave it a weird taste. Finally mixed some miracle whip and Dijon mustard with a little white balsamic. It’s better. Will add some diced yellow and red grape tomatoes right before serving. Made this for a potluck at work tomorrow. Hoping it will be ok tomorrow morning when I add the tomatoes. Would NOT make again.

  5. This looks so good, I love pasta and then you add bacon and ranch Heaven. I do have a question. When I buy chicken I will boil or sometimes bake it, let cool completely and then freeze it for quick meals I do my hamburger the same way, saves so much time. But I was just wandering if I could use it that way instead of frying? Thanks for any help you can give me. 🙂 Have a wonderful day.

  6. Thought it tasted a little too plain so I added peas and some green onion and it turned out amazing.

  7. Loved this recipe! I was looking for something different to take to a family BBQ. I’m told this is what I’ll be bringing to gatherings for the foreseeable future! Thank you, it was a big hit. The only thing I did different was shred the cheese.

  8. This looks so good! I might even make it super easy and buy chicken strips from the deli instead of making my own.

  9. I love any type of pasta and this one looks and sounds mighty awesome. Perfect for the warm weather ahead.

  10. Pasta salad is one of my favorite things about summer and this one looks beyond good!

  11. My kids love three food more than all of the others. They are chicken, bacon, and ranch! This will not last long at my house!