Pasta Salad with Homemade Italian Dressing

For a potluck, I made pasta salad. I was thinking about just adding bottled dressing to some pasta and vegetables but decided against it. Bottled dressings are load with sodium so I thought it would better to make my own Italian dressing. I found a recipe for zesty Italian dressing on GrouponRecipe. However, I made some changes since I did not have some of the ingredients---I used garlic powder instead of garlic salt, I used Italian seasoning in place of oregano, thyme, dried basil, and I omitted the celery salt. Below you can find the recipe for the pasta salad and homemade Italian dressing. I made two batches of the homemade dressing separately but of course you can just double the recipe. Overall, I like the dressing and pasta salad. It was good, light, and not salty. Also, I receive positive from my friends at the potluck. Therefore, this recipe is a keeper for me.

Pasta Salad Ingredients:

• Half a box of cooked Penne
• Half a box of cooked Rotini
• A medium carrot, shredded
• 1-2 cucumbers, peeled and chopped
• 1 medium red pepper, chopped
• 2 batches of homemade dressing**

*You can of course use any kind of vegetables you like in your salad. You do not have to use the vegetables that I chose.

Instructions:

1. Mix all the pasta and vegetables together.
2. Prepare two batches of (or double) the homemade Italian dressing recipe below.
3. Marinate the pasta salad with one batch of the homemade Italian dressing (or half of the doubled recipe for homemade dressing) in the refrigerator for an hour up to overnight. Refrigerate the rest of the dressing. Before serving, pour the remaining dressing over the pasta salad and mix. 

**Homemade Italian Dressing Ingredients:

• ½ tbsp garlic powder
• ½ tbsp onion powder
• ½ tbsp white sugar
• 2 tbsp Italian seasoning
• ½ tsp ground black pepper
• ½ tbsp dried parsley
• 1 ¼ tbsp salt
• 1 cp of red vinegar
• 1 1/3 cp of canola oil
• 2 tbsp water

Instructions:

Mix all the ingredients together.