I don't have that recipe but Italian chopped salad in pasta shells sounds similar. You basically just mix all the filling ingredients together, toss with some Italian dressing, stuff the shells, and drizzle with more dressing. Refrigerate to mellow the flavors.

There are several recipes online. I use this one with tweaks--cherry tomatoes, black olives, and shredded chicken breast. You could sub bacon for the salami. I only use a little salami because I use chicken breast.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/222349/salad-stuffed-shells/

From Google

While we wait for THE ONE

Thanks for the ones so far, but they weren’t quite the same. I used rotini, but farfalle is a good option (I think my store was out). And I believe there was a smidge of mayo plus plain yogurt and diced green onion maybe. A couple of other ingredients mixed with the yogurt and mayo that I don’t recall.

Found it!!! it was in a thread entitled something about being sick of chicken and ribs. Here is a link if anyone is interested. I had never heard of this recipe site. The person who posted it was Jerzeegirl.

https://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-blt-pasta-salad-246171

I omitted the chopped garlic and maybe tweaked it a little elsewhere. The first time I made it I just made a half bag of pasta for DH and I and adjusted the other proportions accordingly. I might have added a splash of white wine vinegar to the dressing. It really is better if it is refrigerated a while and then add the tomatoes before serving.

That looks good!

Both sound sooooo good. WIll have to try tonight.

thekitchn is a site that i trust for recipes. As well as smitten kitchen and Mark bittman among others.

Ok so am in process of making this. I used both cloves of garlic and WOW is it too much garlic. I also question adding the spinach before serving. We will have extra and I know the spinach will get slimey by tomorrow. I wonder if one clove is even more than is needed!!!

gee that's a little rude CA

Arcy, I always add greens just before serving and just to the amount we expect to eat.

Same here with the spinach and also the tomatoes. And as I mentioned above, I eliminated the garlic entirely. Did not miss it from this pasta salad. I also used more chives and used white wine vinegar. It does need more flavor, I agree. I make up the entire recipe of dressing for even a half amount of pasta as the pasta seems to absorb a lot of dressing, and use most of it.

I did note your leaving the garlic out. We like garlic and it did add a lot. In the end it was a delicious salad. I don't know why one would leave the tomato out until serving. Mine held up really well. I dressed the onion/tomato/pasta/bacon a few hours early and let it "marinade" I did not use all the dressing, I kept some in reserve. I knew the pasta would absorb and wanted to serve it creamier. It worked well to serve it on a bed of spinach. I have no way of knowing how much will get eaten so didn't want any spinach in the pasta and this way more spinach was consumed. Next time I will only use one clove of garlic.

Very good idea about serving it over a bed of greens instead of incorporating them. I'll do this when I try the recipe from Jerseygirl as posted by Outside Playing.... the original asked-for recipe.

Also, I bought baby Romain in stead of the bigger one. I wasn't liking the texture of the greens. Was I suppose to use the big head of Romain?

Well, now that I have everyone's tips, I'm going to make this tonight!

Thank you for posting this. It was a big hit. I made it exactly as directed. I ended up not using all the dressing ...maybe 3/4 of it? I used full fat 5% Fage plain yogurt.

Okay - I'm going to give this a try now too. I need some new pasta salad recipes. We aren't big bacon eaters but love a good BLT.

I agree bacon should be an occasional indulgence at best. I think this recipe works out to a strip per person? So a little guilty pleasure.

Okay Mikey liked it! ( The one from kitchn.com). I used broccoli instead of spinach and finely chopped Videllia onion instead of chives. We had leftover boneless chicken breasts and I had 50/50 mix salad on the side to add.

Broccoli is a great idea! esp since I have a TON of it in my garden.

I love the idea of broccoli. Thanks for sharing your tweaks and the results.

While it is a great salad I would not say it will satisfy any craving for a BLT. The garlic dressing takes any similarity to the sandwich far far away. Has everyone had hamburger salad? Now that takes like it's name sake!!

Arcy, I wasn't expecting it to replicate a BLT in the taste profile, but it did occur to me that one could better do that by omitting the garlic and onion. I think one would also want to add chunky croutons, because you don't have any toast flavor in there. It may be too bland then, since pasta is so bland.

What is hamburger salad?

The salad was even better today after the dressing had time to completely soak into the pasta. The broccoli was in the mix overnight, but I added the spinach today. It seemed even more moist. I made the dressing amount called for. Next time I will make the day before or at least very early in the day.

I don't feel like going back thru' all the posts, so I'm sorry if I repeat what might have been said above.

Old, old method for this kind of salad is to make the dressing and the pasta the day before. Mix half the dressing with the pasta and refrigerate overnight; add the rest of the ingredients and the rest of the dressing the next morning. Refrigerate until ready to eat.

I've always done this and it does really help the end product's taste.

Kate

I understand why people do that, but OTOH I think you end up using twice as much dressing that way, since the pasta soaks it in overnight. I only chilled it for the 30 min in the recipe, with half the dressing. After it chilled, i didn't feel i needed to add more. YMMV

Mtn, it really didn't. I made a half recipe of both the noodles/ingredients and the dressing. I used all the dressing at once. It was good the first day, I think it sat in frig for about an hour, but it was perfect the second day. As I said above, I used broccoli for hubby. He does not like spinach. That I put in with the pasta. The spinach/ lettuce mix I kept separate for me and added when I ate.

I made this salad this past weekend. What an interesting outcome - not at all what I expected. I made it exactly as directed and used all the dressing. I didn't leave the spinach or anything else out to be added later. It sat for maybe an hour before we ate it for dinner and we had lots of leftovers. I expected the salad to be kind of creamy which DH usually doesn't like. However it was really dry - dressing quickly soaked into the pasta. I think I'm on day two of leftovers and the spinach isn't slimy at all. I now see how you can mix it in because the salad is so dry. I thought it was kind of bland tasting but I liked it and will probably make it again.

Glad you liked it, 3katz.

One question for anyone who thought it was bland. Just a random thought. Did you measure the salt and pepper? I never used to measure salt and pepper (well of course salt when baking, but otherwise...). I use both a salt grinder and a pepper grinder, so measuring is a PITA. I recently started measuring it tho, and I use a LOT more of both then when I did it by eye.

Mtn, I think, after years of adding too much by eye, I tend to add less than if I measure. I don’t care for overly salty or peppery food so I even tend to add less than called for and then taste later and add more if needed. Unless baking of course.

I am glad you liked it 3katz.

Sometimes I measure S&P and sometimes I don’t. I find measuring fresh ground pepper to be too much of a PITA. I cut way back on sodium years ago and find I usually only like about half the amount called for in recipes. I often just pour coarse salt in my palm and eyeball it. We like pepper so I’m likely to use more not less.

Sometimes I know by taste that I have to add more salt but I can’t offset bland with salt. I have a bunch of salt free spice blends I use and a variety of vinegars to add more zip.

Speaking of salt - I‘m amazed by the amount of salt restaurants use - nice restaurants. It’s as if it’s the only spice they’re familiar with. I guess that’s what most people like if they’ve never cut back on sodium. I’ve had more than a few salty meals I couldn’t eat.

One reason I never measure salt is that I figure the less I use the better. But I think sometimes I have undersalted things for sure.

Here it is mtnrdredux

MOCK Hamburger Salad:

4 strips bacon-cooked/crumpled

1 cup grape tomatoes, halved

1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion

2 romaine hearts, torn

1/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1/4 teaspoon sugar Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

2Tbl Toasted sesame seeds

Dressing:

1 tablespoon yellow mustard

3 tablespoons chopped dill pickle, plus a splash of pickle juice from the jar

1 1/2 tablespoons ketchup

3 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 1/2 tablespoons malt vinegar

3 cups Potato sticks- served on the side so they don't get soggy

I think @nekotish is spot on about adding acid. I learned this maybe 5 - 7 years ago and it has been pretty revelatory in my cooking. I remember the first time I thought a big pot of soup need more salt and dedided to add lemon juice instead. I was so nervous. No way was I going to ruin that whole pot of soup, so I ladled out a scoop and added a drop of lemon juice and was like OH, YEAH.

Recently I was teaching my son a 'wing it' Chicken Tortilla Soup and when he saw me grab the lime juice he was like, "mom?" but he get's it now too.

I agree about the acid. That’s why I sometimes splash in a bit of some kind of vinegar.

Yes, love lime in tortilla soup. I like a splash of time on (fresh) tortilla chips.

I find I have to adjust the amount of vinegar based on which kind I use, as some are sharper and some are milder.