Creamy Chicken Pasta Salad is the ultimate BBQ side. It’s made with tender chicken, easy pasta, and a flavorful mayo dressing.
This simple Side Dish combines two classics, Macaroni Salad and Chicken Salad. They’re already good separately, but putting the two together makes a filling and delicious recipe that you’re sure to be making all spring and summer long.
Sabrina’s Creamy Chicken Pasta Salad
One of the best things about Summer has to be the cookouts. There’s nothing like serving up some hamburgers, chicken, steak and other grilled favorites with plenty of sides. It’s the perfect way to spend a warm afternoon. My Creamy Chicken Pasta Salad is a twist on classic deli salads side that you can add to your BBQ dinner, and it doubles as a great picnic or potluck dish too! No matter where you serve it, it’s sure to be a hit with your guests.
Recipe Card


Ingredients
- 2 cups mayonnaise
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons relish , sweet or dill both work
- 1 pound elbow macaroni , cooked and drained
- 2 cups cooked chicken breast , chopped
- 4 stalks celery , chopped
Instructions
- Mix mayonnaise, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and relish.
- Toss with pasta, celery, and chicken.
- Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
Nutrition
Chef’s Note
This pasta salad keeps fairly well in the fridge so if you have leftovers you can enjoy them as a lunch in the days to follow. Sometimes I make a big batch exactly for that. With the kids home for the summer, things get hectic and I don’t always have time to be making everyone lunch. It’s nice to have an easy dish to pull out of the fridge and serve up without extra work. To make meal prep easier, I’ll cook a large amount of Slow Cooker Chicken Breasts and use some for a big batch of pasta salad and the rest for dinner that night.
How to Store
- Serve: This salad is best kept chilled, and you don’t want to leave it at room temperature for more than 2 hours.
- Store: Kept covered or in an airtight container, the leftovers should stay good in the fridge for 3-5 days.
- Freeze: Unfortunately, the mayo dressing won’t freeze well and I don’t recommend freezing leftovers.
Variations
- Protein: You can easily replace the chicken in this recipe with cooked turkey, ham, or tuna. Or if you want to make a vegetarian pasta salad, mix in some chickpeas or tofu.
- Pasta: You can also easily exchange the pasta for whatever you have in your pantry. Instead of using elbow macaroni noodles try rotini, orzo, orecchiette, or any other shortcut pasta you have on hand.
- Flavor additions: To change up the flavor try experimenting with different ingredients in the dressing. You could add in some spices like oregano, basil, thyme, coriander, or chili powder. Another option is chopping up some veggies to toss in like green onions, bell peppers, cucumbers, or lettuce.
- Yogurt: To make a healthier dressing, you can exchange half of the mayonnaise for Greek yogurt. It will slightly alter the taste, but the other dressing flavors are strong enough to shine through, and it will keep a similar creamy texture.
- Cheese: Shredded cheddar, Swiss, provolone, or Jack would taste great with this recipe if you want to add some cheese.
More Delicious Pasta Salads with Chicken

The following photos were used in a previous version of this post:


This is my husband’s all time favorite chicken pasta dish. Only thing I do different is shred the chicken.
Sounds great Becca and thanks for the five star review.
Hi I’m from Australia so we don’t have a wide variety of sauces like other countries so what kind of relish do you mean , tomato, pickle cucumber, onion
It would be a great help , thank you
Sweet or dill pickle relish! Hope you enjoy the recipe 🙂
I have tried many of your recipes. With 3 kids I forget sometimes to post a review! Love that your recipes are easy, not alot of ingredients and simple instructions. just like ‘This is NOT Diet food’. Thank you for making easy and FAST recipes to put on the table for VERY hungry gentlemen.
Quick easy recipe and the family loved it. Will be making again during cookouts. This one is for the recipe book!
Delish!!! My husband does not like any salad with Mayo. I only did 1/2 Mayo and 1/2 sour cream plus fresh chiles to give it a kick. He loved it. Had seconds and thirds!
Can you use canned chicken
Of course 🙂 Enjoy!