Avocado Pasta Salad is a rich, creamy and totally delicious pasta salad loaded with fresh juicy tomatoes, crisp bacon and creamy avocados. This pasta salad uses avocados in place of mayonnaise for a dressing that is rich and creamy yet loaded with the benefits of avocado! 
Avocados are pretty much one of my favorite things ever! They are healthy, rich and creamy!
I add them to salads, spread them on crackers and eat avocado toast for breakfast at least a few times every week! I’ve been making Avocado Dressing & Dip forever… avocado is so velvety, it makes a perfect base for a dressing in place of mayonnaise!
With summer here, I love meals that don’t require turning the oven on and cold pasta salads fit the bill perfectly.
They can be prepped ahead of time and are the perfect well rounded meal (often with protein and veggies) and great feed the kids before we run out the door to soccer practice! Even better, the leftovers are always yummy meaning lunch tomorrow is already done if we’re lucky enough to have some left!
This recipe marries my favorite avocado based dressing with the same ingredients I top my avocado toast with for the perfect flavor combination!
Juicy ripe tomatoes, crisp smoky bacon, fresh cilantro, a hint of green onion and deliciously creamy diced avocados! The very best part of this recipe is the luscious avocado dressing… full of flavor and silky smooth! To make this a main dish we sometimes add chopped grilled or rotisserie chicken.
Avocados have a rich and creamy texture because they contain monounsaturated fat which is a good fat and can help lower cholesterol when eaten in moderation of course!
Avocado Tips
- Placing avocados in a paper bag with ripe bananas will help them ripen faster. (Due to the ethylene gas naturally released from the bananas).
- Once ripe, avocados will keep in the fridge for 4-6 days.
- When storing a cut avocado, brush the open edge with lemon or lime juice and wrap in plastic before refrigerating. This will help keep avocado from browning as quickly.
- If you have too many ripe avocados, they can easily be frozen. Scoop out the green flesh and 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice per avocado. Puree in a blender or food processor and freeze in a freezer bag. Defrosted avocado is great in this recipe or for guacamole!
- The fats in avocados are great for your skin. Rub the empty peels on your elbows or heels before tossing to soak in some of the benefits of this delicious fruit!
Like most pasta salads, I generally make this a few hours before serving. If you find the avocado dressing thickens too much add a little bit of buttermilk and give it a quick stir before serving. Although I enjoy the leftovers of this pasta salad for a couple of days, due to the nature of the avocados, this pasta salad is best made on the day it is served.
Avocado Pasta Salad
Ingredients
Salad
- 8 ounces rotini or bow tie pasta
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes diced
- 8 slices bacon cooked crisp & crumbled
- 1 green onion thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons cilantro chopped
- 1 avocado diced
- 1 teaspoon lime juice
Dressing
- 1 ripe Avocado
- ½ fresh Lime juiced
- ¼ cup chopped cilantro
- ½ teaspoon cumin
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ Cup Buttermilk
- salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
Dressing
- Place all dressing ingredients in a blender and process until smooth.
Salad
- Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and run under cold water.
- Toss diced avocado with lime juice.
- Combine all ingredients in a large bowl gently toss with dressing.
- Refrigerate 1 hour before serving.
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Salad
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I think this sounds terrific. I’m on Weight Watchers, which makes avocado an “expensive” choice, because it’s nearly half my daily allotted points. I think that’s crap, because avocado is fantastic for you, and I plan to make this anyway, and adjust my points to something less irrational!
Enjoy Kristina!
I wonder if there is an error in the ingredients, or maybe I am being dumb. “1/2 lime, juiced” would seem to refer to the remains of a half lime after being juiced, correct? If so, then this makes the salad inedible due to the bitterness of the lime skin/pulp, not to mention chewy. Lime zest, I could understand but not the husk of the thing. Please clarify. I had to throw nearly all of it away.
You require half a lime… and it should be juiced into the salad dresssing. You can discard the skin and pulp.
That was a clunky way to write that ingredient. I believe the most common way it is written is “juice of half a lime”.
However, the limes we get are small and stingy with juice, often less than 1 TBSP for a whole lime. Yesterday I had to buy from a different supplier and was stunned to get 3TBSP from just half a lime! Big acid change, 1/2 TBSP versus 3 TBSP of juice!
So could you give an approximate of how much juice you use? Would love to try out this recipe this week: it’s been beastly hot, and our stores are running competing specials on big avocados!
Approximately 1 tablespoon lime juice. You can add more or less to taste. Enjoy the recipe!
I’m going to cook this. It looks delicious. Thanks for sharing!
Shared this a while ago so that I could try it later. Today was later. It was wonderful! My husband lapped it up and barely had enough left over to serve with the dinner I was planning!
Amazingly Delicious!!
So yummy! Thank you for sharing the recipe! Gonna try this pasta salad next time.
My husband actually found this recipe and asked me to make it for him. Love it!! Thank you so much for sharing!
You’re welcome! Great that he found it! And better that you loved it!
Have not made yet. Looks delicious. Any idea how many carbs? (T1 D)
Small error on recipe: cherry tomatoes are HALVED not diced.
This looks delicious! That dressing especially. Yum.
We have a bbq tomorrow with 16 friends and I definitely want to make this salad.
But I would lke to add some melon to it. (As I LOVE melon in salads, and it seems so fun to serve the salad in the half melonpeels)
Do you think that would be a nice addition or would it be to sweet?
(Several years ago, for some reason, I suddenly lost a lot of my taste. I can’t rely on my own taste anymore for others, as it might be different.. so it’s hard to cook with flavors to me and taste it while cooking. So I have to know for sure,.)
Deborah (Netherlands)
I can’t say for sure how melon would work in this recipe. If you do try it, please let us know how it worked out for you!
This sounds so good! However my husband can’t have dairy anymore. What non dairy could I substitute for the buttermilk ?
You could try coconut milk with 1/2 tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice. I’ve never tried it, but it should work! Let me know how it turns out!
Loved the recipe! I didn’t have buttermilk so I added a bit of lemon juice to regular milk, let it curdle (about 10 min.) and it worked perfectly!
So glad you loved it! :)
This will be our lunch today! All my favourite things in one dish. I may love you ;). Thanks!
Haha, let us know how it turns out! :)
This was super delicious! I added chicken since I made it for dinner. Definitely will make it again.
So glad you loved it Shayna! :)
I made this tonight and it was amazing. I didn’t have any lime, so I used orange zest instead. So good. Thanks for sharing!
That sounds like a great substitute! Glad to hear you enjoyed it!
Delish!!!!..yuuuumm..is there a way to know how many caloríes??..per serving and the serving size??plzzzz!!!! thanks!!!
I love this pasta salad and I am always looking for variations of it. I tend to put more vegetables in mine including celery, broccoli, and carrots. I also put chicken and hard pepperoni for more “natural salt” so I don’t go overboard with the dressing. A squirt of lemon juice is another add-on ingredient
Can I make this 1 day ahead of time?
This recipe is best made the day of serving.
The cover page ingredient list says coriander and does not list cilantro. The actual recipe does not call for coriander and does call for cilantro.
Cilantro is also known as coriander in some locations so certain programs automatically change the wording. This recipe uses fresh cilantro.