Easy Broccoli Pasta Salad Recipe | Heath Riles BBQ

This Broccoli Pasta Salad is quick to prep, easy to customize, and guaranteed to be a crowd-pleaser. Add it to your next BBQ spread and watch it disappear. Let me know what you think—and don’t forget to tag us when you make it!

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Products Used:
• Large mixing bowls https://amzn.to/4nF8tb7
• Kitchen shears https://amzn.to/45ZMy82
• Measuring cups and spoons https://amzn.to/3TxFxnB
• Spatula https://bit.ly/44AM0BV
• Cutting board https://amzn.to/4lpuvgt
• Aluminum Pan https://amzn.to/460ZQRG
• Gloves https://amzn.to/4m9Q8kX
• Heath Riles BBQ Garlic Jalapeño Rub https://bit.ly/2yXvmD4

Ingredients:
• 12 oz bag broccoli florets, chopped into small pieces
• 10 oz bag cauliflower (rainbow or white), chopped
• 6 oz cooked pasta (rotini, bowtie, or shells work best)
• 1½ cups mayonnaise
• 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• ¾ cup granulated sugar
• 1 tbsp Heath Riles BBQ Garlic Jalapeño Rub (adjust to taste)
• 1 small onion, finely diced (or half a large one)
• 1 lb cooked bacon, chopped
• 3–4 oz shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:
1. Chop broccoli and cauliflower into bite-sized florets. Set aside.
2. Cook pasta according to box instructions, drain, and let cool completely.
3. Make the dressing. In a bowl, whisk mayo, vinegar, and sugar until smooth. Stir in Garlic Jalapeño Rub.
4. In a large bowl, mix broccoli, cauliflower, and pasta with half the dressing.
5. Fold in onion and bacon. Add remaining dressing and stir well.
6. Mix in mozzarella until evenly combined.
7. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving for best flavor.

Chapters:
Intro 0:00
Cut up broccoli and cauliflower 0:18
Make dressing 1:53
Combine ingredients in large bowl 2:31
Add mozzarella cheese 4:50
Outro 5:35

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Heath Riles, pitmaster
• 81x BBQ Grand Champion
• ’22, ’24, and ’25 Memphis in May World Rib Champion
• 2025 Memphis in May Grand Champion
• Award-Winning Rubs, Seasonings, Sauces, Glazes and Marinades/Injections

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Let’s make a delicious broccoli pasta salad. This is an easy one. Stick around. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Let’s make a broccoli pasta salad. The first thing we’re going to do, I’m going to take a 12 oz bag of broccoli fuettes and a 10 oz bag of cauliflower. I happen to pick up a bag of the rainbow cauliflower, but regular cauliflower, white cauliflower is just fine. Now, what I’m going to do to this is I’m going to take it and I don’t want to leave this broccoli hole. So, what I mean by that is I’m going to take my scissors and I’m going to start nipping all the little pieces off of these large stems. Just like that. That’s what I’m trying to do right there. Get all that broccoli. Just like that. on it all off the big stems. So, let’s keep going. All right, that’s all I had left right there. That’s all my broccoli. And that right there all done up in small pieces. When you get a big piece of broccoli, it don’t seem like it’s nowhere near as good. Uh trying to get all the seasoning around it and into it and everything else. But now, let’s go ahead and do this cauliflower the same way. All right, we are all mixed up here. All done. As you can see, all that is just so pretty. It’s going to make a really colorful, flavorful salad here. This is something that’s actually I don’t want to call it halfway healthy with the mayo and the sugar and all that going in it, but it does have a lot of green vegetables. We’ve also cooked about a half of a box, which is about 6 oz of pasta of your choice. Now, I went ahead and chose this style right here. It’s completely up to you, whatever you choose. Now, I’m starting with a cup and a half of mayo. You can use whatever you want. I’m going to also going to use 3 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. Now, I’m going to use 3/4 of a cup of sugar. Now, let’s get this mixed up. Now, once you get that kind of whipped into a cream like consistency, I’m going to use some of our garlic jalapeno rub about a good tablespoon. Half. You start with a half a tablespoon and then go to a whole depending on how you like it. Remember, it’s only going to get spicier as you go. But with this sugar, we’re just kind of balancing everything out. I’m going to make this easy. I’m going to start with a bigger bowl than I have. And I’m going to take all my chopped cauliflower and broccoli and put in this bigger bowl. All right. Now, I’m going to fold in about half of this and mix some of it up before I fold in the rest just to make it easier to mix. Probably need to grab a bigger spoon over here. Now, once you get that kind of mixed up around, I’m going in with this 6 oz of pasta. I’m going to throw it all over my counter as well. Now, we may as well go in here. I’ve got one small onion and I’ve got a real fine dice, but you can use a medium onion or a large onion. Just use half of it. Depends on how much you want to put in. Now, when I do that, I’m going in with that pound of cooked bacon. And you can use more bacon if you want. Completely up to you. Now, I’m going to drizzle the rest of this dressing over and get it mixed up. So, this recipe come from a friend of mine out of Texas that we met while hunting out there and he was gracious enough to give it to me and u I can tell you it’s one of the most flavorful uh pasta salads I’ve had or broccoli pasta salad. You’re not used to eating noodles with the broccoli or anything like that. I just fell in love with this salad here. It’s an easy summertime side dish. And once you kind of get everything mixed around, I’m kind of honestly going to get on a glove and make sure I toss this around really, really well. But you just need to pop it in the fridge and let it chill. You can, if we weren’t eating it right now, I would make the dressing up and not toss it up until I was going to eat it. But for me, I like putting the dressing on it about a day in advance. Some people like toss it in the dressing the day of. It’s completely up to you what you like. Now, once we get all this mixed up, like I said, I am going to try this for a little bit of quality control even before I chill it. So, let’s get in here and I’m going to make sure I get a little bit of everything. I got bacon, broccoli, onion, all that on here, cauliflower. Just when you thought the recipe was over, I made a mistake. I didn’t add the cheese, so I’m bringing it back out. You can add three to four ounces of mozzarella cheese to this dish. So, and honestly, while I’m doing it, I’m going to hit it with just a tad bit more of this right here. Just a little bit. Now, get it mixed around and get it in the fridge to marinate. I knew that I was leaving out something. And then I found my bowl of cheese. All right, there it is. And it would not be right unless I took a handful of this and honestly tried it with the cheese. Please make this dish and try it. You’re guaranteed to enjoy it. I can’t stop talking. I’m sorry, y’all.