Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad

Raise your hand if you like all things Buffalo chicken! Is your hand raised? Good, mine is too! I’ve created this Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad for all my fellow Buffalo sauce lovers. Enjoy all that spicy flavor in a cold and creamy pasta salad perfect for lunches or a summer cook out!

Packed with all the flavors you’d expect from a Buffalo chicken recipe, and use rotisserie chicken to make this extra easy!

Ingredients

Here’s what you need to make this recipe!

Macaroni. You can use your favorite brand of elbow noodles. You’ll use 2 and 1/2 cups for this pasta salad.
Rotisserie chicken. This is the trick that makes this pasta salad so easy! No need to cook your own chicken, just use 1 and 1/2 cups of shredded rotisserie chicken. Saves time!
Hot sauce, ranch, and sour cream. Combine these to make the dressing for the pasta salad. Use your favorite brands, but since these are the main ingredients for the sauce I recommend buying the best quality you can.
Blue cheese. If you’re not a blue cheese lover you can leave this out and swap for Mozzarella cheese.
Scallions and celery. These will add a nice pop of green to the pasta salad! I like to cut the celery super small so that it adds a nice crunch, but not overwhelming celery flavor to each bite.

How to make the pasta salad

Cook the pasta. Cook your macaroni noodles, strain them, then add to a large bowl. I found 2 and 1/2 cups of dry macaroni noodles was enough!

Make the dressing. In a large bowl combine 1/2 cup of hot sauce, 1/2 cup of ranch dressing, and 3/4 cup of sour cream.

Combine the dressing and the cooked macaroni. Pour the dressing over the noodles and stir to coat.

Add in the fixins. Once the noodles are coated with the dressing, pour in the diced celery, blue cheese, scallions, and shredded chicken.

Chill. Put the bowl in the fridge and allow to chill for at least 2 hours before serving.

Ok Buffalo chicken lovers, there are some of my other recipes that feature spicy Buffalo sauce!

Buffalo Chicken Meatballs are the perfect party appetizer! All the flavors of chicken wings without the mess, and no bones!
Want a spicy burger? Buffalo Chicken Burgers will be a hit at your next cook out!
Buffalo Chicken Taquitos are a fun and easy dinner! Crunchy taquitos you can dip in ranch or blue cheese.
Similar to this pasta salad, I’ve also got a Buffalo Chicken Pasta! This is a hot recipe even loaded with crispy bacon.
Last for the spicy recipes, these Spicy Pretzel Bites are homemade pretzel balls brushed with Buffalo sauce for an appetizer with a kick!

If you want more easy pasta salad recipes, one of my most popular is this French Dressing Pasta Salad!

Cooking tips

• Pasta salads in my opinion are best eaten fresh, the day they are made. They can loose some of the creaminess and sauciness after sitting in the fridge for a day or more. If you have to make this the day before, I’d recommend either increasing the sauce quantities a bit, or making an extra side of the sauce so you can mix it in before serving the pasta salad.
• If you don’t like blue cheese crumbles you can substitute with another cheese, like Mozzarella.
• Dice the celery very small. It will add a nice crunch to each bite without adding too much of an overwhelming celery flavor.
• I’d rate this a medium on the spice level. Want extra heat? Increase the hot sauce or you can even add a few dashes of cayenne pepper if you want a super spicy dish!

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