Aug24
25
posted by Emily Bites in All Recipes, Buffalo Flavor, Comfort Food, Main Dishes, Pasta, Salads, Side Dishes
This Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad is a fun, creamy, spicy twist on traditional pasta salad that makes a great main dish for lunch or dinner as well a crowd-pleasing potluck option. I liked the idea of lightening it up a bit by making it part pasta salad, part green salad using the Romaine and it turned out amazing. The romaine, celery and carrots give crunch, it’s super hearty and filling with the chicken, veggies and pasta, and the sauce is creamy with a nice little Buffalo kick. To view your WW PersonalPoints for this recipe and track it in the WW app or site, click here!
If you want to make less, it’s easy to halve the recipe, and I especially love it as a portable weekday lunch option. If you do want to serve it as a side dish at a cookout or potluck, I would just cut the serving size in half for 16 servings of 2/3 cup each.Don’t forget to check out myEasy Slow Cooker Shredded Chickenpost- the perfect way to make shredded chicken for this recipe!
Love Buffalo chicken dishes as much as I do? Check out the Buffalo flavor category of my recipe index for Buffalo Chicken Enchiladas, Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken, Buffalo Chicken Lasagna Roll-Ups, Buffalo Chicken Pizza, Buffalo Chicken Quinoa Bake, Buffalo Wing Hummus, Buffalo Chicken Taquitos, Buffalo Chicken Wonton Cupcakes, Buffalo Cheese Bread and more!
Print Recipe
5 from 1 vote
Rate this Recipe
Prep Time: 10 minutes mins
Cook Time: 15 minutes mins
Chill Time: 1 hour hr
Total Time: 1 hour hr 25 minutes mins
Calories: 297kcal
This Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad is a creamy, spicy twist on traditional pasta salad that makes a great lunch, dinner or potluck dish!
Yield: 8 (1 1/3 cup) servings
Ingredients
- 12 oz dry whole wheat pasta, I used Farfalle
- 12 oz cooked boneless skinless chicken breasts, chopped (mine was grilled)
- 4 cups chopped Romaine lettuce
- 1 celery stalk, diced
- 1 ½ cups shredded carrots
- ½ cup plain fat free Greek yogurt
- 2 oz crumbled blue cheese
- 1/3 cup light blue cheese dressing, I used Marzetti Light
- 1/3 cup Buffalo wing sauce, adjust to taste if desired
Instructions
Cook the pasta in salted water according to package directions and drain. Rinse the pasta in cold water and then place it in a container in the refrigerator for at least an hour until chilled.
When the pasta is cool, place it in a mixing or serving bowl and add the chicken, lettuce*, celery and carrots and stir together until well combined.
*If you are planning to make this once and eat it for lunches all week, I would suggest waiting to add the lettuce and just adding it in to each serving when you pack your lunch to ensure it doesn't wilt.
In a separate bowl, combine the crumbled blue cheese, Greek yogurt and blue cheese dressing. Using a fork or the back of a spoon, “smush” the blue cheese crumbles into the yogurt mixture until there are no large chunks remaining. Add the Buffalo sauce and stir until well combined. Pour the blue cheese mixture over the pasta salad and toss together until pasta salad is well coated.
Notes
To view your WW PersonalPoints for this recipe and track it in the WW app or site, click here!
Nutrition Information per (1 1/3 cup) serving:
297 calories, 35 g carbs, 3 g sugars, 7 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, 22 g protein, 6 g fiber(from myfitnesspal.com)
MyWW SmartPoints per (1 1/3 cup) serving: (SP calculated using the recipe builder on weightwatchers.com)
Green: 7 SmartPoints/ Blue: 6 SmartPoints/ Purple: 2 SmartPoints
Weight Watchers Points Plus:
7 per (1 1/3 cup) (P+ calculated using the recipe builder on weightwatchers.com)
Author: Emily Bites
Course: Salad
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Buffalo Chicken, Creamy Pasta Salad, Picnic, Weight Watchers, WW Pasta Salad
posted on August 24, 2015
25 comments »
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25 comments on “Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad”
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Jessica Morales — August 24, 2015 @ 4:02 pm Reply
is there any other dressing besides blue cheese we can use? not to fond of blue cheese ? thanks in advance
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Emily Bites — August 24, 2015 @ 4:06 pm
It’s against everything I am as a Buffalonian to suggest this, but…I *guess* you can use ranch if you must ;). Enjoy!
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Cindy — August 24, 2015 @ 7:45 pm Reply
This looks really good, definitely going to try it, but without the lettuce, not really sure why lettuce is in a pasta salad.
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Emily Bites — August 30, 2015 @ 10:53 pm
Feel free to make any adjustments you like, Cindy. I’ve actually seen quite a lot of pasta salads with lettuce recently (BLT pasta salad, Caesar Pasta Salad, etc) and I love the idea of making the servings larger and more filling by mixing in some more traditional “salad” ingredients. If that is not your thing, then I’m sure this will be just as tasty without the lettuce 🙂
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Mary Beth — August 25, 2015 @ 10:38 am Reply
Buffalo wing sauce…are you talking about a prepared store-bought sauce? If so, how do you figure the points on that? Or is it just hot sauce added to the blue cheese dressing? This looks great! Good way to use up some left-over rotisserie chicken…
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Emily Bites — August 26, 2015 @ 9:08 pm
Hi Mary Beth, Buffalo wing sauce is usually found by the hot sauce. Frank’s Red Hot makes one, but if you can’t find it you can use their regular hot sauce.
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Nicole — August 27, 2015 @ 10:19 am Reply
Can’t wait to try this!! I love a good pasta salad. Occasionally I make a salad with pasta, so it should be tasty!
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Emily Bites — August 30, 2015 @ 10:51 pm
Hope you love it! 🙂
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Sam — August 29, 2015 @ 7:39 am Reply
I am going to make this for lunches this week and add the lettuce everyday as I go so it doesn’t get too soggy. This sounds great, thanks!
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Emily Bites — August 30, 2015 @ 10:49 pm
Great idea, hope you love it!
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Brittany — August 30, 2015 @ 9:50 pm Reply
Made this tonight for Fear the Walking Dead and it was a big hit. Can’t wait to have the leftovers this week for lunch.
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Emily Bites — August 30, 2015 @ 10:42 pm
I’m so happy to hear it was a hit! Thanks for letting me know 🙂
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Justine — September 15, 2015 @ 7:43 pm Reply
i think I might make half with dressing and reserve the other half next time, I liked it better day 1. And maybe use less chicken. I dunno. I like it but not a top 10. Which is crazy since almost everything I’ve made makes the top 10 list lol. Maybe it is the pasta I used. Just something needs to be tweaked. But that’s ok. It was still yummy
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Emily Bites — September 21, 2015 @ 11:13 am
Sorry you didn’t love this one, Justine. I hope the next one you try is back in your top 10 🙂
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Amanda — February 4, 2016 @ 3:01 pm Reply
How do we measure the servings if we are putting the lettuce in each day for lunch? Would it be 1 cup pasta mixture then 1/3 cup lettece?? Or 1 and 1/3 cup pasta mixture then add lettuce? Please advice :). Thanks!!
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Annie — April 4, 2016 @ 6:26 pm Reply
I have the same question about how much pasta and how much lettuce to use if you are adding the lettuce separately? looking forward to having this for lunch tomorrow!
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Emily Bites — April 12, 2016 @ 2:00 pm
Just make it without the lettuce and then you can either weigh the whole recipe or count it out in cups. Divide by the number of servings listed and that’s the right amount. Then you can add in as much lettuce as you prefer when you take a serving!
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Laura — April 9, 2016 @ 10:57 pm Reply
Thank you so much for this recipe! It was delicious, better even than I was expecting. I added a touch more buffalo sauce and used rotini for the noodles, but kept everything otherwise the same. I’m going to be trying many more of your recipes in the future!
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Emily Bites — April 12, 2016 @ 1:46 pm
Thanks Laura, glad you liked it! 🙂
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Elizabeth — October 1, 2017 @ 8:34 am Reply
This is my first time here and I love how detailed your recipes are!!! Keep up the good work!!!
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Leanne — February 2, 2018 @ 6:17 am Reply
Hi Emily,
This receipe looks great. i normally meal prep on a Sunday ( for lunches up till Wednesday) and again on Wednesday for the rest of the working week. Does the pasta salad keep well in the fridge and taste okay a couple of days after?
Thanks
Leanne -
Debbie — June 24, 2018 @ 6:32 pm Reply
Have the smart points changed on this since you posted the recipe. It’s coming up as 4 smart points on the weight watchers recipe builder .
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Debbie — June 24, 2018 @ 6:52 pm Reply
Oh never mind I put the Incorrect ounce of dry pasta oops lol .
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angela hitchner — September 9, 2018 @ 2:02 pm Reply
Emily is just giving her version of a recipe…why cant you try something different or alter it yourself instead of making all the negative remarks??
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Janelle — April 14, 2021 @ 7:16 pm Reply
This satisfies a wing/fried food craving!
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