Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Pasta Salad

Sun-dried tomato chicken pasta salad with rotisserie chicken, basil, Parmesan, and a dressing made with the oil from the sun-dried tomato jar so every bite picks up the concentrated flavor. Lemon juice and red wine vinegar keep it fresh and balanced instead of thick and overloaded.

This Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Pasta Salad Feels Very 1992

Sun-dried tomato chicken pasta salad usually goes one of two ways. Either it gets buried under a thick mayo dressing, or the sun-dried tomatoes feel tossed in at the last minute. I’ve always kept the dressing lighter and used the oil from the tomato jar itself along with Parmesan, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, basil, and rotisserie chicken so the sun-dried tomato flavor ends up throughout the whole salad instead of only in the tomatoes.

I’m sitting in my apartment, rocking back on two legs in a chair with a jar of oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes and a fork, completely fangirling over the intense tomato flavor like I was experiencing some kind of taste revelation. The second these jars started showing up in grocery stores in the late 80s and early 90s, the entire country collectively fell in love with this tomato + oil + garlic combination in a sort of Italian-adjacent fantasy and instantly lost perspective. Including me.

And honestly, it made no sense.

It’s not like sun-dried tomatoes were some shocking new discovery to me. I’d already seen tomatoes drying outside in Southern Italy years before, laid out in the hot summer sun so people would have them all winter long. The giant gardens taking over backyards everywhere you looked with tomatoes completely running their lives. None of this should have felt groundbreaking to me and yet somehow, I jumped on the bandwagon and became fully unreasonable anyway.

I started putting them into eggs, pasta, salads, sandwiches, and probably a few things that really had no business involving tomatoes at all. I’m drizzling the oil onto toast, into dressings, over leftovers, anything nearby. I was acting like tomatoes had just been invented, along with everyone else. Honestly, the obsession eventually turned into things like my sun-dried tomato pesto pasta too.

And somewhere in the middle of my sun-dried tomato obsession, I started making a version of this pasta salad and bringing it to work for lunch. This became a thing because somebody kept stealing it out of the office refrigerator. Every time I brought it, gone. Then one morning I made the same pasta salad except I’d run out of sun-dried tomatoes, so I left them out. The container disappeared from the refrigerator like usual, except later that afternoon it mysteriously reappeared untouched, which still makes me laugh because apparently the office lunch thief also had standards. And even though I can’t prove it, I hink it’s because the sun-dried tomatoes were not there. I still think of this person as my first accidental recipe tester.

So, this pasta salad has technically been causing incidents since the early 90s.

Over the years, I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time correcting every annoying thing that usually ruins this category of food, because somewhere along the line this category of pasta salad started turning into these overloaded bowls with chewy tomatoes, thick dressing, and too many ingredients trying to get attention at the same time. I’ve made sure this one keeps the concentrated tomato flavor that made us all obsessed in the first place, while spreading it through the dressing using the oil from the jar so the salad tastes bright and fresh straight out of the fridge instead of like a dusty deli-counter regret from the 90s.

What Makes This Different

• Most sun-dried tomato pasta salads eventually fall into one of two categories: either they’re drowning in thick dressing and distractions, or they taste like somebody emptied an entire jar of tomatoes into cold pasta and hoped for the best. I have avoided both.
• The biggest difference is that the dressing uses some of the oil from the sun-dried tomato jar itself because that’s where most of the flavor is sitting anyway. A lot of recipes will stop at chopping up the tomatoes and tossing them in, but using the oil blends the concentrated tomato flavor through the entire salad instead of trapping it inside chewy tomato bites.
• I wanted the dressing lighter than a typical deli-counter pasta salad that can turn dense and dull the second it hits the refrigerator. The lemon juice and red wine vinegar keep everything lively while the Parmesan gives it enough richness. The whole thing is still thriving the next day instead of tasting like it gave up overnight under plastic wrap.
• There’s enough happening to make every bite interesting, but not so much that it turns into an antipasto salad. The rotisserie chicken, basil, roasted red peppers, red onion, and Parmesan all serve a purpose instead of competing with each other.

Ingredients

• Oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes – You want the kind packed in oil, not the dry chewy ones in a bag. The oil becomes part of the dressing, which is a big part of why this pasta salad tastes the way it does.
• Rotini pasta – All those little spirals grab onto the dressing instead of letting it slide to the bottom of the bowl.
• Rotisserie chicken – This keeps it firmly in easy lunch territory without requiring you to roast chicken just to make pasta salad.
• Roasted red peppers – They soften the intensity of the sun-dried tomatoes so it doesn’t taste like somebody yelling “TUSCAN” directly into your face.
• Red onion – Thin slices only. Big chunks of raw onion in cold pasta salad take over and then that’s all anybody remembers.
• Fresh basil – This is what keeps it from tasting like it came from a refrigerated deli tub beside the macaroni salad.
• Mayonnaise – Enough to hold everything together without turning the dressing thick and gloppy.
• Parmesan cheese – Gives the dressing some depth and saltiness.
• Oil from the tomato jar – Don’t skip this part. It’s the moment. The tomatoes themselves are not doing it all.
• Lemon juice – Cold pasta needs acid or it starts tasting dull straight out of the refrigerator.
• Red wine vinegar – Balances the concentrated tomato flavor.
• Dijon mustard – Adds another layer of flavor.
• Garlic – One clove is enough.
• Italian seasoning – Adds background flavor without turning it into something that tastes like faux trattoria wallpaper.
• Black pepper – Adds some edge so it doesn’t head into creamy picnic salad territory.

How to Make Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Pasta Salad

• Step One (cook the pasta and let it cool)
  Boil the rotini in heavily salted water until just al dente. You still want a little bite left in the pasta because cold pasta firms up more once it goes into the refrigerator. Drain it, rinse under cold water, then let it hang out in the colander for a few minutes so the extra water drains off well because watery pasta will wreck your dressing later.
• Step Two (prep everything else)
  Chop the rotisserie chicken into bite-sized pieces, then chop the sun-dried tomatoes and roasted red peppers. Slice the red onion thin and roughly chop the basil. I like keeping everything fairly even-sized so you get a little bit of everything in each scoop instead of one giant onion chunk taking over the whole scoop.
• Step Three (make the dressing)
  Whisk together the mayo, Parmesan, oil from the sun-dried tomato jar, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, Dijon, garlic, salt, Italian seasoning, and black pepper until smooth. The oil from the tomato jar is doing a lot flavor-wise, so don’t skip it unless you enjoy a bland pasta salad.
• Step Four (mix it together)
  Add the cooled pasta, chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, red onion, and basil to a large bowl. Pour the dressing over everything and fold it together until evenly coated. You want the pasta to look dressed.
• Step Five (chill before serving)
  Cover the bowl and refrigerate the pasta salad for at least 30 minutes before serving. Cold pasta absorbs dressing as it sits, which is why pasta salad usually tastes better after some time in the refrigerator.
• Step Six (give it one last toss)
  Right before serving, stir it again. If the pasta absorbed too much dressing while chilling, add a squeeze of lemon juice or a small spoonful of sun-dried tomato oil to loosen everything back up. Cold pasta salads almost always need a little revival before they hit the table, and ignoring that is how you end up with dry pasta salad at a baby shower.

Recipe Tips

• Let the pasta drain longer than you think it needs to after rinsing. Water hiding inside the rotini will thin the dressing and end up tasting watery fast.
• Slice the red onion thin. Cold pasta salads give raw onion a lot of time to make a presence. Thick chunks get much stronger overnight.
• If you’re making this ahead, hold back a small spoonful of dressing until right before serving to freshen the texture before serving.
• Don’t overdo the sun-dried tomatoes just because you’re attached to them.
• The basil is more important than it seems. The fresh flavor is everything.
• Rotisserie chicken is what makes this easy and it’s already seasoned so it doesn’t disappear beside the concentrated tomato flavor.
• If the pasta salad tastes dull after chilling, it usually doesn’t need more salt. It needs acid. A squeeze of lemon will do it.
• Keep the dressing lighter than you think you should at first. Cold pasta thickens everything once refrigerated, and what looks slightly loose at room temperature usually thickens up once chilled.

Storage and Make-Ahead Tips

• This pasta salad keeps well in the refrigerator for about 2 to 3 days, although it’s at its best during the first couple of days while the basil still tastes fresh and the dressing still feels fresh on the pasta. After sitting overnight, the rotini absorbs some of the dressing, which is normal, so don’t be surprised when it looks different straight from the fridge.
• If you’re making this ahead for a party or cookout, you can also hold back a small amount of dressing and stir it in right before serving. That keeps the pasta salad from turning dry and refrigerator-weary by the time people get to it.
• We’re not freezing this. We’re not freezing mayonnaise, basil, and cold pasta and then acting like anybody involved is going to enjoy the outcome later. Some things in life are meant to be made fresh and eaten cold straight from the refrigerator.

FAQs

• Can I make sun-dried tomato chicken pasta salad ahead of time?
  Yes, and it’s better after it sits for a little while because the dressing has time to absorb into the pasta. If you’re making it a full day ahead, hold back a small spoonful of dressing to stir in before serving so the pasta salad doesn’t feel dry by serving time.
• Do I have to rinse the pasta?
  For hot pasta dishes, usually no. For cold pasta salad, yes. Rinsing stops the cooking so the pasta doesn’t turn soft later, and it cools everything down so the dressing stays balanced instead of sliding off the hot pasta.
• Can I use another pasta shape?
  Yes, but stick with shapes that grab onto dressing well. Rotini catches the dressing and tiny bits of tomato, Parmesan, and basil instead of letting everything slide around separately at the bottom of the bowl.
• Can I use grilled chicken instead of rotisserie chicken?
  Definitely. Rotisserie chicken just keeps the whole thing easy and gives you a little extra seasoning and richness without additional work. Grilled chicken works too if you already have some leftover, but make sure it’s seasoned properly.
• Can I make this without mayonnaise?
  You can, but it changes the pasta salad quite a bit. The mayo gives the dressing enough creaminess to carry the sun-dried tomato flavor without making it oily.
• Can I add more ingredients to this?
  You can, but this is one of those recipes where holding back helps. Too many add-ins and suddenly everything starts competing with each other. If I wanted to add anything it would be canned artichoke hearts that were packed in oil.

From My Kitchen Notes

Notes from somewhere between memory and dinner.

• There’s a point where obsession stops being about the ingredient itself and starts becoming about the version of yourself that existed while you were eating it.
• I think we all underestimate how much food becomes attached to entire periods of life without realizing it at the time. One bite and I’m suddenly back in an apartment with bad blinds, a secondhand chair, and three dollars worth of confidence.
• There’s something strangely intimate about eating the same thing over and over when nobody else is around to witness it.
• I don’t think the 90s were better. I think we were all less reachable.
• I feel like the foods we become irrationally attached to are usually the ones we ate while trying to build a life.
• Sun-dried tomatoes still taste like independence to me. Tiny apartment, with the city outside the window, while trying to become a person.
• There’s a point in adulthood where you think once your life finally comes together, you’ll stop eating things straight out of jars in your kitchen. That has not been my experience.
• Memory is interesting. It preserves emotional texture better than facts. I couldn’t tell you what chair I was sitting in, but I can still feel the oil on my fingers.
• I don’t think people miss old food trends as much as they miss who they were while those foods were happening.
• I wasn’t in my house elegantly sampling imported Mediterranean ingredients. I was sitting in my apartment spiraling over sun-dried tomatoes like the rest of America. It was a specific human obsession.
• I think a lot of adulthood is realizing nobody was ever coming to stop you from living however you wanted, including badly.
• Nineties sun-dried tomato obsession made us all feel like we had just got off a plane from Tuscany and that makes me laugh now.
• I used to think becoming an adult meant eventually feeling certain. Now I think it mostly means becoming familiar with uncertainty.
• The 90s weren’t perfect but there was less comparison, surveillance, optimization, constant exposure to other people’s success and awareness of what everyone else was doing every second. You could become obsessed with sun-dried tomatoes, decorate your apartment badly, date the wrong person, wander around bookstores, disappear for a weekend, have weird little phases. All existing inside your life instead of inside a giant public mirror.
• Now we are all constantly absorbing luxury lifestyles, beauty standards, success, productivity culture, relationship content, self-improvement language, wealth signaling, exotic travel, bodies, houses all day long. And it’s a lot. And we don’t know how to stop.
• In the 90s (70s and 80s too) we had more tolerance for boredom, uncertainty, gradualness and not knowing what was next. Now everything feels accelerated, measured, compared, monetized and visible in a way that makes everyone else’s life feel like it’s moving faster than yours. Even when that’s not true.
• Sometimes I think memory feels so emotionally alive to me because there used to be more psychological privacy. I don’t think people realize how much of their personality is accumulated atmosphere.
• Some people become part of your life the same way certain ingredients become part of a recipe. At some point you stop noticing when they got there because now the whole thing tastes wrong without them.
• Some things don’t disappear during silence. They steep.

More Pasta Salads, Less Potluck Panic

• Italian Pasta Salad – pesto, prosciutto, mozzarella, arugula.
• Antipasto Pasta Salad – deli board energy.
• Chicken Ranch Pasta Salad – creamy, cold, picnic-style.
• Caprese Pasta Salad – basil, mozzarella, fresh tomatoes.

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Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Pasta Salad

This Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Pasta Salad combines rotini, rotisserie chicken, basil, Parmesan, roasted red peppers, and red onion in a lighter pasta salad dressing with lemon juice, red wine vinegar, and oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes. It’s an easy make-ahead pasta salad for lunches, potlucks, cookouts, and warm-weather dinners.

Prep Time20 minutes mins

Cook Time10 minutes mins

Chilling30 minutes mins

Total Time1 hour hr

Course: Main Course, Salad, Side Dish

Cuisine: American

Keyword: chicken pasta salad, cold chicken pasta salad, pasta salad with chicken, summer pasta salad, sun-dried tomato chicken pasta salad

Servings: 6

Calories: 520kcal

Author: Cathy Pollak

Equipment

• large pot For boiling the pasta.
• Colander Helps drain and cool the pasta completely.
• mixing bowls (large and medium). Tossing the pasta salas and whisking the dressing.
• Chef's knife For chopping the chicken and vegetables.
• whisk Helps fully combine the dressing ingredients.

Ingredients

Pasta Salad:

• 1 lb (454 g) rotini pasta
• 2 cups (280 g) chopped rotisserie chicken
• ½ cup (85 g) drained and chopped sun-dried tomatoes in oil ½
• ¼ cup (40 g) drained and chopped roasted red peppers
• ½ cup (80 g) thinly sliced red onion
• ½ cup (12 g) chopped fresh basil

Dressing:

• ¾ cup (168 g) mayonnaise
• ¼ cup (22 g) grated Parmesan cheese
• 3 tbsps (45 ml / 40 g) oil from the sun-dried tomato jar
• 2 tbsps (30 ml) fresh lemon juice
• 1 tbsp (15 ml) red wine vinegar
• 1 tsp (5 g) Dijon mustard
• 1 clove garlic grated
• ½ tsp (3 g) kosher salt
• 1 tsp (1 g) Italian seasoning
• ¼ tsp (0.5 g) finely ground black pepper

Instructions

• Bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil. Add the rotini and cook until just al dente according to the package directions. Drain well, then rinse under cold water to stop the cooking and cool the pasta completely. Let the pasta sit in the colander for several minutes so excess water can drain off before mixing the salad. Excess moisture will thin the dressing.
  1 lb (454 g) rotini pasta
• While the pasta cools, chop the rotisserie chicken into bite-sized pieces. Chop the sun-dried tomatoes and roasted red peppers, thinly slice the red onion, and roughly chop the basil.
  2 cups (280 g) chopped rotisserie chicken, ½ cup (85 g) drained and chopped sun-dried tomatoes in oil, ¼ cup (40 g) drained and chopped roasted red peppers, ½ cup (80 g) thinly sliced red onion, ½ cup (12 g) chopped fresh basil
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, grated Parmesan, oil from the sun-dried tomato jar, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, grated garlic, kosher salt, Italian seasoning, and black pepper until smooth and fully combined. Using the oil from the jar gives the dressing a more concentrated tomato flavor throughout the salad instead of only in the tomato pieces themselves.
  ¾ cup (168 g) mayonnaise, ¼ cup (22 g) grated Parmesan cheese, 3 tbsps (45 ml / 40 g) oil from the sun-dried tomato jar, 2 tbsps (30 ml) fresh lemon juice, 1 tbsp (15 ml) red wine vinegar, 1 tsp (5 g) Dijon mustard, 1 clove garlic, ½ tsp (3 g) kosher salt, 1 tsp (1 g) Italian seasoning, ¼ tsp (0.5 g) finely ground black pepper
• Add the cooled pasta, chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, red onion, and basil to a large mixing bowl. Pour the dressing over the top and fold everything together until the pasta is evenly coated and the ingredients are well distributed.
• Cover and refrigerate the pasta salad for at least 30 minutes before serving. Chilling gives the pasta time to absorb some of the dressing and helps the flavors come together.
• Stir the pasta salad again before serving. If the pasta has absorbed too much dressing after chilling, add a small spoonful of water or a squeeze of lemon juice to loosen the texture and refresh the dressing.

Notes

• Drain the roasted red peppers very well before chopping so excess moisture does not water down the dressing.
• The oil from the sun-dried tomato jar adds more flavor than plain olive oil and ties the dressing to the rest of the salad.
• Rotisserie chicken keeps the recipe quick while adding savory flavor without extra cooking.
• Short pasta shapes with ridges like rotini, fusilli, or penne hold the dressing especially well.
• This pasta salad tastes best within the first 2 days while the basil and dressing are at their freshest.

 

 

If you’re making this Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Pasta Salad, check out the full post. That’s where I keep extra tips, FAQs, and details that don’t always make it into the recipe card.

 

Nutrition info is an estimate and will vary depending on the brands you use.

 

©Noble Pig. All content and photos are copyright protected. Sharing the recipe link is always appreciated, but copying and pasting the full recipe anywhere else isn’t allowed.

Nutrition

Nutrition Facts

Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Pasta Salad

Amount Per Serving (290 g)

Calories 520 Calories from Fat 270

% Daily Value*

Fat 30g46%

Saturated Fat 5g31%

Polyunsaturated Fat 14g

Monounsaturated Fat 8g

Cholesterol 55mg18%

Sodium 640mg28%

Potassium 420mg12%

Carbohydrates 38g13%

Fiber 3g13%

Sugar 4g4%

Protein 23g46%

Vitamin A 620IU12%

Vitamin C 18mg22%

Calcium 110mg11%

Iron 2mg11%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

Have you made this Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Pasta Salad? I’d love to hear how it turned out – leave a comment below and let me know.

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