Cured Meats Are The Ultimate Savory Addition To All Your Pasta Salads

You can put just about anything in them, but adding cured meats to your pasta salads makes perfect sense. It's a clever and utterly yummy way to consolidate some common items in your refrigerator that never made it to your charcuterie board or homemade pizza. 

Whether you cube it or slice it into a strip, each piece of cured meat should be able to fit onto a fork with some of the other pasta salad ingredients. When it comes to the amount, it's up to you. You can use up to 10 ounces of any cured variety per pound of dried pasta or you can use as little as the four lonely pepperoni just sitting in your refrigerator with nowhere left to go.

And in fact, pepperoni is a great place to start since it's right at home when you add it to this veggie antipasti Italian pasta salad recipe. Salami is also a good candidate for this one because it can be sliced thinly or cubed. This tortellini Greek salad recipe with little chunks of pepperoni and salami added to it, is not only a divine upgrade but a smart hack to use up bits of meats at once.

Prosciutto is another popular cured meat perfect for a pasta salad, but you'll need to adjust its texture to make it perfect as a pasta add-in. While the absolute best way to eat prosciutto doesn't involve cooking it, some store-bought prosciutto can be tough, especially after hanging out in the refrigerator for a bit. It can also be a little soft and hard to incorporate into pasta. Cooking it helps to keep the prosciutto separated. Resurrect that yummy prosciutto by cutting it into bite-size pieces and crisping it up in a pan. Add it to this already-tantalizing southwest pasta salad recipe for some crunch and a bit of protein. The creamy and spicy chipotle dressing is a match made in heaven for the buttery prosciutto. 

Sopressata is another fun and spicy option, especially when you add it to this Caesar chicken pasta salad. This rustic-looking cured meat has just enough bite to take on the garlicky, salty components of the Caesar dressing. Sopressata should be sliced thinly into small strips though, since it's a little chewy.