With pasta, chicken, sweet fruit, salty cashews, and a creamy dressing, every bite of this Cashew Chicken Pasta Salad is like a circus of flavors!

Don’t miss our Easy Cashew Chicken if your craving the stir fry!

Cashew Chicken Pasta Salad Recipe

You can put pasta salad right up there with pie, Oreos, cheese, and freshly baked bread. In other words, some of my favorite things. It’s easy, hearty, appropriate for lunch or dinner, a full meal or a side dish, you can make it ahead of time, provides leftovers the next day, or feeds a lot of people making it perfect for a pot luck, and it’s just delicious. This Cashew Chicken Pasta Salad is no exception!

I’ve brought this pasta salad to so many get togethers and I always leave with an empty bowl – everyone loves it! With spiral pasta, cooked chicken, fresh fruit, salty crunchy cashews, and a creamy dressing, it’s loaded with texture and flavor. Sort of reminds me of a cross between my broccoli salad and chicken salad. Sweet and savory combos are always the best!

Ingredients Needed

Here’s what you’ll need to make this easy pasta salad recipe.
(Scroll to the bottom for our easy printable recipe with the complete directions.)

• Rotini pasta – We love this shape of pasta, but really any short pasta with grooves works great.
• Cooked chicken – diced up baked chicken breast or rotisserie chicken
• Pineapple – fresh or canned
• Celery
• Grapes – both red and green for a nice color contrast
• Dried cranberries
• Roasted and salted cashews
• Scallions
• Dressing – a mixture of Ranch dressing and mayonnaise

Recipe Variations

• Almonds instead of cashews
• Plain Greek yogurt instead of mayonnaise
• Red onion instead of the scallions
• Golden raisins instead of the dried cranberries

Video: Cashew Chicken Pasta Salad

Make Ahead and Storing Leftovers

As with most pasta salads, the longer all the ingredients mingle, the deeper the flavors. However, I also think with most pasta salads, the longer they’re in the refrigerator, the more they dry out.

For this Cashew Chicken Pasta Salad I recommend either serving it right away, or chilling in the refrigerator for just 1-2 hours. It won’t be at all bad if it chills for longer, it just won’t be as creamy. Either way, though – DELISH.

More Pasta Salad Recipes:

• Greek Pasta Salad
• Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad
• Lemon Orzo Salad
• Chicken Broccoli Pasta Salad
• Cowboy Pasta Salad
• Italian Chopped Salad

I hope you love this delicious and easy recipe – be sure to give it a review below! Also don’t forget to follow Belly Full on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube!