This post may contain affiliate links.Read my disclosure policy.These pasta salad recipes are fantastic for parties and potlucks, but equally good for weekday lunches! Grab the recipes, plus tips for making your pasta salads perfect.

6 Tips for Making Pasta Salad When it comes to healthy recipes, pasta salads may not be at the top of your list—but they should be! Skip the heavy dressing and add extra vegetables and you can make a lightened up pasta salad that’s fresh and flavorful.Here are my top tips: Add Salt to the Water I think sometimes we want to avoid salting the water for pasta because we’re afraid of overdoing it on the sodium, but remember: most the that salted water will be poured down the drain anyway!  Salting the cooking water makes the pasta more flavorful—and when the pasta is more flavorful, it means you don’t need to add massive amounts of dressing and cheese to make your pasta salad delicious.Dress in Two Phases If you’ve ever made pasta salad in advance only to find it dry as a bone in your fridge, this is the solution.

Add half of the dressing right away, while the pasta is still warm.Toss to coat.Then, just before you plan on serving, add the rest of the dressing.

This allows your pasta salad to absorb some of the dressing while it’s warm so it doesn’t soak up the rest of the dressing when you add it before serving.Consider Your Add-Ins Another tip for making pasta salad in advance is to leave out

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