In the summer we like to eat lighter and cooler foods and this week has been a hot one with temps. in the 100's plus.  I started scrounging around in the pantry to see what I had that would be cool and wouldn't take too much heat to make and I came across a box of Kraft Classic Italian Pasta Salad. 
 
The salad comes in a 6.4 ounce box that is blue with a picture on the outside of the salad.  The pasta and vegetables come inside the box and the Italian Dressing is something you have to provide.

It takes about 10 minutes to cook in the microwave.  Add the pasta and vegetables into a microwave safe bowl, add three cups water and cook for about 8 minutes on high.  Drain and run cold water over the pasta until its cool.  Now pour the Italian dressing over the pasta mixture and stir.  Put in the refrigerator until cold or you can serve right away.

I like to add additional items to the salad such as the grape tomatoes, cucumber chopped and a little bit of fresh pepperoni. 

The taste of the salad is good and all the flavors meld together well and this does taste good by itself as a meal or with a meal such as ribs that have been cooked in the grill.

Add a little fresh prosciutto then put it into a pita pocket or a tortilla and it does make a fairly decent sandwich for supper, lunch, or slice them and you have a great little snack to serve friends and family.

A serving size is ¼ the box with a calorie count of 250 when prepared just as a salad.  The fat grams are 9.  You could lower the fat grams by adding a fat free Italian dressing. 

The Kraft Classic Italian Pasta Salad is good but not great.  The cost is about $2.50, then the added cost of the salad dressing.  I have to say I make a better pasta salad than this boxed one and feel no reason to purchase it again especially since I have to purchase the Italian salad dressing to go into the salad. 

Another reason I wouldn't purchase this again is the fact that the vegetables that come in the box don't get fully cooked and some still stay in their dehydrated form.  Even after letting the salad sit for a while in the refrigerator it still doesn't soften up.  The one vegetable I can identify are the peas and I'm not even sure of that. There are other things that we haven't been able to identify.  While the flavor is good I can't stand something hard in my mouth that I don't know what it is and its hard.

I don't recommend the Kraft Classic Italian Pasta Salad at all.

Recommended: Yes