Give Your Pasta Salad New Life By Adding Deviled Eggs Into The Mix

Pasta salad is such a popular dish because it's bursting with flavor, yet so simple to put together. You can make it in minutes — especially if you use a store-bought dressing (although making your own is the way to go). If you're looking for a way to add a ton of flavor and protein to your next pasta salad recipe, you don't have to shred a bunch of chicken or grill up some shrimp. Instead, reach for the hard-boiled eggs. Their soft texture helps them blend right into the salad, and they'll give a traditional dish a fun twist that imbues your recipe with the flavors of deviled eggs.

Deviled eggs and pasta salad often use a mayonnaise-style dressing as a flavor enhancer, so combining the two just makes sense. For this flavor combo, it's best to use a creamier dressing rather than a vinegar-based one. Luckily, you can make it yourself with just a few key ingredients.

When you remove the yolk from a hard-boiled egg and blend it with mayo, you effectively create a deviled egg filling — which is made by blending egg yolks with various ingredients, often including mayo. When you add this creamy egg yolk mixture to pasta salad, the dish begins to taste a little like a delicious deviled egg. At the same time, the recipe becomes a sort of hybrid of pasta salad and egg salad. Yum! 

To get the eggs to the right consistency, boil them for about 10-12 minutes. At the 10-minute mark, they'll be firm with just an ever-so-slightly gooey center. A full 12 minutes will leave them completely firm. Add a little vinegar to the water to make them easy to peel. 

Dip the eggs in ice water to stop the cooking process, then peel them, chop them, and add them to your pasta salad. While the pasta shape you use doesn't matter, since the eggs will be chopped pretty finely, you might want to pair them with a smaller shape, like macaroni.

There are plenty of ways to build flavor in this recipe but you should start with the dressing. Cut the richness of mayo by adding any seasonings you want. Salt is essential here, and paprika is commonly paired with deviled eggs, so this spice would also work well.

Since hard-boiled eggs and pasta are both soft, you should add some texture to the salad. For a little crunch, you can keep things vegetarian-friendly and chop up some red onions. Cornichons or even pickles are great options here, too. Or, you can cook some bacon or crisp up some prosciutto, then chop it and add it in. If you go with one of the meat options, don't add it in until you're about to serve it to help keep its crunch.

Make sure to only add half of the mayonnaise mixture to the deviled egg salad if you don't plan to serve it right away. Otherwise, the pasta will absorb the dressing, leaving the salad dry. If you prepare it ahead of time, remove the salad from the refrigerator 15 minutes before serving to make sure the dish isn't too cold.