Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad

One of my favorite side dishes is the Suddenly Salad Ranch and Bacon.  I will eat a whole box myself.  While browsing along through some recipes on my favorite site, allrecipes.com , I found this one for a homemade version.  Perfect!!!  I tried it out today for a bbq we're doing with some friends.  I made sure to test it out before hand so I wasn't giving anything to our friends that wasn't good.  then I had to test it several more times before I was satisfied (I had to stop "testing" or else there wouldn't have been any left for tonight).  This will now be one of my "go to" recipes for a pasta salad, especially for get togethers and bbq's.  I love how creamy it is.  The box stuff never seems to have enough sauce for my tastes.  What's even better....real bacon!!!! Not bacon bits or whatever it is they use in the box.

Ingredients

1 (12 ounce) package uncooked pasta

8 slices bacon

1 1/4 cup light mayonnaise

1 envelope ranch salad dressing mix

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon garlic pepper

1/2 cup milk, or as needed

1 roma tomato, chopped

1 can black olives, sliced
1 cucumber, chopped

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions

1.Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Stir in pasta and cook for 10 to 12 minutes or until al dente; drain.

2.Place bacon in a skillet over medium-high heat and cook until evenly brown. Drain and crumble.

3.In a large bowl, mix mayonnaise, ranch dressing mix, garlic powder, and garlic pepper. Stir in milk until smooth. Place bacon, tomato, black olives and cheese in bowl and toss to coat with dressing. Cover and chill at least 1 hour in the refrigerator. Toss with additional milk if the salad seems a little dry.

I have no clue the point value for this, but it's probably on the high end with the bacon, cheese, pasta and mayo (even though I used light mayo). but hey, if you're using this for a bbq who's really counting calories or points at those because, let's face it, most the time the desserts are irresistible and every diet goes out the window with them.  =)

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