Instant Pot Dill Pickle Pasta Salad—say goodbye to boring pasta salads and hello to this pasta salad that is infused with pickle flavor! Make the pasta quickly and easily with your Instant Pot.
Instant Pot Dill Pickle Pasta Salad
I’m an okay fan of regular pasta salad. I guess my gripe is that it never has enough flavor. I decided to up the flavor by cooking the pasta in a mixture of pickle juice and water and by adding lots of crunchy dill pickle to the salad.
Here in the Petersen household we are big dill pickle fans (not sweet pickles…ewwww). Greg’s main snack in life is a crispy dill pickle. We love the little pickles from Costco. I love pickles in my potato salad so why not add them into pasta salad? Of course it was a brilliant idea.
Pasta salad really is one of those dishes that you can add in whatever you like. For example I added in pickles, pepperonis, tomatoes and chunks of cheese. But some other good additions might be diced cucumber, bell peppers or olives. Get creative and empty out your fridge at the same time!
If you LOVE dill pickles I really think you’ll LOVE this pasta salad. Make it for dinner tonight or for a side dish at your next barbecue or potluck this summer!
More Instant Pot Recipes You’ll Love…
What Pressure Cooker Did You Use?
To make Instant Pot Dill Pickle Pasta Salad I used my 6 quart Instant Pot Duo 60 7 in 1*. I love this Instant Pot because it has the yogurt making function which I use almost weekly. It has two pressure settings (high and low), and there are also little slots in the handles so that you can rest the lid there instead of putting it down on your counter-top.
Instant Pot Dill Pickle Pasta Salad
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 3 minutes
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
Description
Say goodbye to boring pasta salads and hello to this pasta salad that is infused with pickle flavor! Make the pasta quickly and easily with your Instant Pot.
Ingredients
For the pasta:
- 8 ounces uncooked rotini pasta (white or whole wheat)
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 1/2 cup pickle juice
For the dressing:
- 1 Tbsp fresh minced garlic
- 2 tsp dried dill
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1/4 cup pickle juice
- 1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
For the salad:
- 1 cup chopped pepperoni
- 1 cup cubed cheddar cheese
- 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
- 1 1/2 cups diced dill pickle
Instructions
- Cook the pasta: Add pasta, water and dill pickle juice to your Instant Pot. Cover and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 3 minutes (for firmer pasta) or 4 minutes (for softer pasta). When the time is up move the valve to venting. Remove the lid. Drain the pasta of any remaining liquid. Set aside.
- Make the dressing: In a bowl whisk together the garlic, dill, olive oil, salt, onion powder, pickle juice and mustard.
- Prepare the salad items: chop the pepperoni, cube the cheese, halve the tomatoes and dice the pickles.
- Toss the salad. Add the dressing and the salad items in with the pasta. Coat the pasta well with the dressing. Add salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate until ready to eat.
Notes
I used my 6 quart Instant Pot Duo 60 7 in 1*.
- Category: Salads
- Method: Instant Pot
- Cuisine: American
*Karen Petersen is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
I use more pickle juice to water ratio. I also found that the refrigerator pickles have more of a crunch. I have made this several times. Delicious!
So glad you like it! I love refrigerator pickles.
Making this for lunch/supper today….it’s sooooo hot outside, will be perfect meal. My “Pavlov’s dog” hubby heard the beeper go off on the IP & wanted to eat like, NOW! What. Ever. Followed recipe exactly. Is delicious & will probably be better leftover tomorrow (if you-know-who doesn’t eat it all today). We love dills around here! This is a most perfect recipe. Thanks again!
★★★★★
I love that pavlov’s dog analogy. Greg is the exact same way. Every time he hears the beeping sound he comes on over.
2 funny. Men. Ha! Wanted you to know I just made it again, this time with ham cubes ’cause that’s what he wanted next. He loves ham sammies with dill pickles. And next time I make it I’m gonna cube some Hillshire Farms Summer Sausage. This is such a perfect recipe for all the time but especially summer. Most excellent.
ham sammies with pickles sound delish! Now that’s what I want for dinner!
Fantastic! Didn’t have cherry tomatoes so added artichoke hearts. Absolutely yummy.
nom nom!!
Made it using dill pickle mustard. Oh. My. Yum.
★★★★★
Dill pickle mustard? Wow! That sounds great. I’ve never heard of that!
It was great. I only used 1 cup of diced dill pickles and it was enough.
★★★★★
Thanks for the 5 stars!
I can’t wait to try this one. Hubby & I LOVE dill pickles! On the list for this week. Will come back & add the stars. I know it’s gonna be a winner. I make pasta salads all the time, never thought to use the JUICE to cook the pasta…yes, child, you are brilliant!
Greg is the biggest fan of pickles so we always have a jar in our fridge! Hope you like it!
I love pasta salads but we’re not dill pickle people. Do you have any suggestions for a substitute?
This is really heavy on the pickle flavor. I would just make a regular pasta salad if I were you. If you don’t like dill pickles you won’t like this recipe.
I made this for Memorial Day and also for July 4th and I can’t recommend it more highly. Sooooo good! I like it so much more than regular pasta salad. Thanks Karen!
★★★★★
Me too. Pickles are my jam.
This was SO easy and really good!
★★★★★
Yay Kari! Glad you liked it!
I made it for my husband but he really does not like vinegar in recipes so I only put 1 cup of dill pickle and 1/8 cup of the dill pickle juice and still he found it too vinaigre so I ended up cooking an extra 4 ounces of pasta and added it up to everything with some more pepperoni and some more tomatoes and then he gave it a 5 stars. See photo:
https://shared-assets.adobe.com/link/7020cc38-35b2-4123-4a93-52f06f344980
★★★★★
I love that you were able to adapt it your family’s needs! The pic looks great! Thank you for sharing that 😊
This sounds amazing! I was planning to make an italian pasta salad for a Memorial Day get together this weekend. But guess what? I’m going to make this dill pickle salad instead. I hope you and yours have a fantastic holiday Karen!
Thank you Bonnie! I hope you have a wonderful holiday as well 😊
Is there something else you could substitute for the pickles? My husband and I detest any kimd of pickles.
★★★★★
I would use another recipe for pasta salad then. This one is heavy on the pickle taste!!!
The recipe says rigatoni pasta (ie tubes) but shouldn’t it say fusilli or rotini (corkscrews)?
Doh! yes it should say that. I think I accidentally typed rigatoni and meant rotini. Just corrected it.
Is the cook time the same if you double the recipe?
Yes it is.
Thanks. Do you use the same amount of pickle juice and water or would you double those?
Double!
I’m so excited to try this! Would olives be gross in it?
no they’d be great! My husband just hates them so I didn’t put them in.
Made it last week. LOVED it. Love anything dill pickle flavored – dill potato chips!! – and this was just perfect. Allowing it to sit and marinate for a while is imperative to develop the dill flavor from the dried dill. I’d give it at least a couple of hours next time. Thanks for this excellent recipe.
★★★★★
Good tip! Thanks!
Its sounds great. But I do love bread and butter pickles. I will have to try this.
You had me at infused with pickle flavor.lol….. Looking forward to trying this one. I was looking for a new, different side dish for the 4th of July, found it!😊😃
I think you’ll really like it Robin!
Genius! I can’t wait to try this.
I hope you like it! We did!