Dill Pickle Pasta Salad with Bacon

Article by Amy Stevenson

Dill pickle pasta salad with bacon is an easy, deeply satisfying crunchy-creamy-tangy-savory side dish that’ll have you coming back for thirds. The chefs in the Food Network Test Kitchen carefully considered and tested every detail, down to the best pasta shape to use and how to put pickle brine to work, too.

Ingredients In Dill Pickle Pasta Salad

The Best Pasta to Use: For pasta salad, you want to choose a short shape of dried pasta (fresh pasta is usually too fragile here) that has curves or holes to soak up the dressing and hug the ingredients. Fusilli is a great choice, as is cavatappi, rigatoni or mezze rigatoni, campanelle, pipette, rotini, farfalle or medium shells. We used green spinach pasta to lean into the green pickle theme, but you could also use 12 ounces of regular dried pasta.

The Best Pickles to Use: Pickles show up twice. First, as a crunchy ingredient along with its unbrined pal, cucumbers. Second, pickle brine is stirred into the dressing to balance the creamy mayonnaise and sour cream. You can use any dill pickle spear you like, though refrigerated brands are usually fresher and have more crunch. Most of the brine goes into the dressing, but we also stir in a few tablespoons right before serving. This provides double duty – loosening up the pasta salad after it has sat a bit and adding a hit of acid and brininess to perk up the flavors right as you are about to serve. (This trick works for any mayo-based pasta or potato salad, and you can use vinegar if there aren’t pickles in the salad)

Tips and Tricks for Making Pasta Salad like a Pro

Liberally season the pasta water: Make sure to salt the water liberally as it will soak in and season the pasta. A few tablespoons in a large pot of water should do the trick – but taste once you’ve stirred in the salt – it should taste pleasantly salty, like the sea.

Cook the pasta until al dente: You'll achieve al dente pasta by cooking it a few minutes shy of the cooking time on the package.

Rinse and dry the pasta well: This is the one time you do want to rinse pasta. Usually, you want to keep the excess starch on the pasta so it helps make the sauce seem creamy, but here starch is the enemy. Rinsing the pasta will help keep it from sticking together and tasting gluey once you add the dressing and let it sit. Just remember to drain and dry the rinsed pasta well, as water can collect in the nooks and crannies and make the final product soupy.

Taste for salt and pepper right before serving: We haven’t included a measured amount of salt here because the amount of sodium in pickle brands vary so you may or may not need to add additional salt.

Serve at room temperature: Pasta salad is best served at room temperature after it has had a little time for the flavors to mingle. Let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour before serving.

How to Make Dill Pickle Pasta Salad Ahead

You can make this pasta salad up to three days ahead of time and store it in an airtight container. To serve, bring it out of the refrigerator 30 minutes to an hour before serving. Just don’t forget those last 2 tablespoons of pickle brine at the end to brighten the flavors.