This is a delicious pasta salad. The ingredients go so well together. I followed the recipe exactly except I didn't have olives. Really nice flavor and keeps well- great for making for lunch throughout the week. I used an entire box of pasta and there definitely wasn't too much mayo.

Very good pasta salad! I used 3 cups of DRY tri-colored spiral pasta, cooked, 1c. mayo, 3/4c. zesty italian dressing, 1 1/2 tbsps. dried italian seasoning (instead of fresh basil), salt and pepper for the dressing, I left out the tomatoes. I did about a cup of black olives, a whole large green bell pepper, a small red onion, and 2 large garlic cloves. A 4th of July hit!!

I don't think you can give a recipe a 5-star rating when you've changed it substantially. I made this salad exactly as the recipe stated and found it not worthy of serving as is, hence my honest 2-star opinion. The garlic and basil were completely overpowered by the flavor of the mayo (used Hellman's- not some off brand). I used a 16 ozs of noodles, I'm sure that's more than two cups dry so I don't think that was the problem either. It took a lot of tweaking to get this to taste just ok. After two hours of playing with it I ended up with something that tasted more like macaroni salad than I had hoped for but at least didn't taste so strongly of mayo. I think half of the mayo should have been replaced with sour cream or yogurt but it was too late for me to do this at the point I realized the problem.

This is a good recipe but, I found it a little dry....next time I will add more mayo and vnegar

This was great---everyone loved it! I used a little italian dressing instead of the red wine vinegar, and I also added about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of pesto and dumped in some mini spinach tortellini. It was amazing the next day and even better on day 3. Thanks!

This is a great recipe with a few changes - I added a couple tablespoons of Good Seasons dry italian dressing mix to the mayo and a little extra vinegar. I also added cooked chicken breast (also seasoned w/ italian dressing), and cubed mozzarella cheese. I also upped the amount of pasta ( didn't seem like quite enough) I left out the red pepper (just not in the mood for it) and the garlic (husband not a huge fan of it). Made a really delicious meal - my husband loved it and my 2 and 4 year olds both ate it up too!

Good. I used a touch of balsamic vinegar with white vinegar

Really good, however I started experimenting right off the bat. I used 4 cups of rotini instead of 2, and I left out the tomatoes, the bell peppers, the basil and the black olives simply because I didn't have any of those ingredients. I also added diced chicken breast to this, and the end result was fantastic. I will try the original recipe...eventually.

I served this wonderful salad over lettuce for a lite summer dinner. I used some dried basil since I didn't have fresh and omitted the black olives since my family doesn't care for them. My husband loved it and my 4 yo had seconds which is rare. This will be a regular on our table this summer. Thanks for the great recipe.

I added 2 extra cups of pasta as there was way too much dressing & added about a 1 tbsp of Italian dressing season mix to the mayo mixture. Took this salad from "bland" to "grand!"

Pretty good! My changes were: Didn't have tomatoes, colored peppers or black olives ( I almost always have them, I was bummed). Used instead: green pepper, onion,peas and shredded some carrot into it. I also added a couple of TBSP of organic Italian dressing. Bumped up the spice with a little more basil, added onion powder and garlic powder. VERY good pasta salad.

WOW. Absolutely delicious simple dressing! I used this as a pasta salad guideline, because it had such good reviews; I used black beans, bacon, and olives with the simple mayonnaine dressing and it is out of this world. Can't wait to bring it to Mother's Day!

Wow, this makes a lot! I made it for a group of 60 and it was the only pasta salad and had just a little left over. I was concerned about it being bland, so I added extra spices (oregano, parsley, chili powder, garlic poweder, italian seasoning blend) and a couple tbs of italian dressing. I sauteed the pepper for a couple of minutes and added mushrooms. I also cubed up some mozzarella, since everything's better with cheese!

Perfect! Made it exactly as the recipe says to and I would not change a thing! Oh wait - I did add chopped red onions to it. Yum-O!

Like other reviewers, I also found this pretty bland. Perhaps that was because I only used about half the dressing, Using all the dressing it would have been way too "goopy" for me. I tried adding a lot of other ingredients to pump up the flavor...more basil, a couple of dashes of cayenne pepper, a little bit of my homemade balsalmic vinegar...After much tweaking, I finally acheived something that was okay, but not great.

VERY BLAND! I thought I made this a long time ago and loved it. Maybe I did something wrong, not sure. Didn't have much taste at all.

Pretty bland.

Perfect summer salad. I can't stop eating it though.

Very good. Was like something you could buy at the deli.

i make it with miracle whip and i dont add the basil or olives. ive been making it since 2005. thank you so muhc for this recipe... this is the best pasta salad on earth.