Garlic and basil nicely compliment the tomatoes, capsicum and olives in this easy to make pasta salad. It is a great summer BBQ side dish. For best results, chill overnight.
WARNING: DO NOT USE LOW FAT MAYONNAISE. I made it the first time with regular mayonnaise and it turned out to be the hit of the party! I couldn't find fresh basil so I even used dried. Then I decided to make it with low fat mayonnaise and it turned out horrible. Great recipe... - 19 May 2003 (Review from Allrecipes USA and Canada)
Excellent. This is really a full 5 star recipe.... easy, pretty, and yummy. I followed the recipe, except I used white wine vinegar (since I was out of red). I'm perplexed as to why some reviewers thought there was too much mayo. I hate too much salad dressing (always order it on the side!), but this only had a light coating. I'm wondering whether those people didn't use enough pasta. It calls for 2 cups of DRY pasta, which is actually an entire box, I believe (the box I used had 16 oz dry rotelle). Anyway, it's the best pasta salad I've ever had! - 13 Jun 2006 (Review from Allrecipes USA and Canada)
I made this salad for a baby shower I recently had and received great reviews for it. I used bow-tie pasta and added in blanched broccoli florets, seedless cucumbers, red, yellow, and green peppers as well as fresh Roma tomatoes. For the dressing, I used 1 cup of mayonnaise but added in about 3/4-1 cup of prepared zesty Italian dressing, along with the suggested ingredients. I too was afraid of the large amount of mayonnaise. Regardless, everything tasted great and it got better each day it was left-over. I would make it again because it was pretty looking. - 09 Apr 2007 (Review from Allrecipes USA and Canada)