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This Confetti Salad is cold, creamy, crunchy, and packed with colorful vegetables. Broken spaghetti makes it easy to scoop, while the tangy Parmesan dressing keeps every bite flavorful. It’s a refreshing side dish that needs no oven and gets even better after chilling.
Why You’ll Love It
- Creamy and crunchy — crisp cucumber, celery, red pepper, corn, and red onion balance the rich dressing.
- Easy to scoop — broken spaghetti keeps long noodles from slipping out of the serving spoon.
- Tangy, savory dressing — Dijon, white vinegar, Parmesan, and Worcestershire sauce add plenty of flavor.
- Great for make-ahead meals — an hour in the refrigerator lets the flavors settle in.
Ingredient Notes
Use regular spaghetti, nothing fancy required. Break it into pieces about one to two inches long before boiling. It feels slightly wrong the first time dry spaghetti snaps in half, but it works so well in this salad. Then break it again. This is not a centerpiece.
For the vegetables, dice them fairly small and keep them roughly the same size if possible. Perfectly uniform pieces are not required.
The red pepper adds sweetness and that bright pop of color. The red onion gives the salad a little bite, though the creamy dressing softens it nicely after chilling. A large cucumber is called for. If using one of those skinny little things from the grocery store that costs more than it ought to, use enough to keep the salad from losing its fresh crunch.
The canned whole-kernel corn needs to be well drained. Give it a little shake in the colander because watery corn is a nuisance. As for mayonnaise, use a preferred brand. Mayonnaise can bring out strong opinions.
Freshly grated Parmesan is lovely, naturally, but the recipe works with the grated Parmesan most often kept in the refrigerator. This is a practical salad. It does not need a performance.
Ingredients
- 1 (16-ounce) package spaghetti, broken into 1- to 2-inch pieces
- 1 red pepper, diced
- 1/2 red onion, diced
- 1 large cucumber, diced
- 3 stalks celery, diced
- 1 can whole-kernel corn, drained really well
For the dressing:
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 3/4 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 1 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
In a small bowl, stir together the mayonnaise, sour cream, grated Parmesan, white vinegar, sugar, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, onion powder, salt, and black pepper. Stir until it’s completely smooth and the Parmesan is worked through the dressing.
Break the spaghetti into short pieces, somewhere around one to two inches each. No need to measure every strand; just aim for bite-size bits. Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the spaghetti until al dente. Don’t let it go mushy. This salad spends an hour chilling in dressing, and soft pasta has a way of turning from tender to sad if overcooked at the start.
Drain the pasta well, then let it cool for 15 minutes. Don’t skip the cooling time and toss hot noodles with the creamy dressing, or the whole bowl can get oddly slick.
Add the cooled spaghetti to a large salad bowl. Add the diced red pepper, red onion, cucumber, celery, and drained corn. Give everything a gentle toss. It already looks pretty at this stage, all those colors mixed around.
Pour the dressing over the salad and toss until the pasta and vegetables are evenly coated. Turn it over from the bottom of the bowl so the dressing reaches everything. The short spaghetti pieces like to cling together at first.
Cover the bowl and chill it for 1 hour before serving. That hour is where the magic happens, if “magic” includes ordinary refrigeration and a little patience. The flavors mellow, the pasta takes on the tangy dressing, and the whole thing becomes much more than a bowl of chopped vegetables with noodles.
Variations
The version here has the right balance—crisp vegetables, creamy dressing, and enough seasoning to keep it from tasting flat. Dice everything extremely tiny for a confetti-like salad that can be eaten with a spoon, or keep a slightly bigger chop for more distinct pieces of cucumber and celery.
A similar salad can be made with a different shape of pasta, but the little spaghetti pieces hold the dressing in such a nice way and make the salad feel lighter somehow. Sometimes the recipe knows better.
Serve it alongside burgers, grilled Chicken, or whatever comes off the grill without getting charred into oblivion.
Storage & Reheating
Keep Confetti Salad covered in the refrigerator, and it will hold well for a few days. It’s especially good the first and second day, when the flavors have had time to settle in but the cucumber and celery still have plenty of crunch.
There is no reheating involved—please don’t reheat it. Cold, creamy spaghetti salad is not a Casserole. Just give it a good stir before serving leftovers, since a little dressing may settle at the bottom of the bowl.
Pack it into containers for lunches, with a piece of grilled chicken or a handful of crackers alongside it.
Final Notes
This is the sort of recipe that makes an ordinary table look a little happier. Not transformed into a magazine spread—let’s not get carried away—but brighter. There’s something about all those colors in one cold bowl that feels like summer is still trying, even when the grass is dry and the air conditioner is making that weird clicking noise again.
Make it early if possible. Let it chill. Put it out with dinner and enjoy a full second helping.
A spoonful straight from the refrigerator the next day is always a good idea.
Confetti Salad
Ingredients
- 1 (16-ounce) package spaghetti broken into 1- to 2-inch pieces
- 1 red pepper diced
- 1/2 red onion diced
- 1 large cucumber diced
- 3 stalks celery diced
- 1 can whole-kernel corn drained really well
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 3/4 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 1 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- In a small bowl, stir together the mayonnaise, sour cream, grated Parmesan, white vinegar, sugar, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, onion powder, salt, and black pepper until completely smooth and the Parmesan is worked through the dressing.
- Break the spaghetti into short pieces, about 1 to 2 inches each, then bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the spaghetti until al dente, being careful not to overcook it.
- Drain the pasta well, then let it cool for 15 minutes so the hot noodles do not make the creamy dressing slick.
- Add the cooled spaghetti to a large salad bowl, then add the diced red pepper, red onion, cucumber, celery, and well-drained corn and gently toss everything together.
- Pour the dressing over the salad and toss until the pasta and vegetables are evenly coated, turning from the bottom of the bowl so the dressing reaches everything.
- Cover the bowl and chill the salad for 1 hour before serving so the flavors mellow and the pasta takes on the tangy dressing.