*This is a sponsored post by Happy Little Plants Protein Puffs. All reviews and opinions expressed in this post are based on my personal view.

I received a package of various flavors of Happy Little Plants Protein Puffs (click for link) to try and then to create a recipe with. I was very excited to get this box from Amazon because my doctor has been after me to get more protein in my diet. I thought this was perfect. They are shelf stable. They come in ranch, nacho, and cinnamon flavor. And each snack bag has 16 grams of protein!

We opened up one bag of each flavor and passed them around to each other to take a couple to try. The beginning taste is pretty good. It is the after taste that got my entire family. Of the four of us we all liked the beginning taste of the nacho, and ranch. One preferred the cinnamon best. But, for all of us it was the after taste of the, I believe, isolated soy protein that made us not want to try more. If you have followed my blog for any length of time you know I am completely honest in my product reviews and not a single one of us wanted to eat any more of them straight from the bags.

So, to make a recipe (because you all know me I am NOT about throwing good food away) with them I needed to use them in a dish with lots of flavor to mask the after taste. I made a layered Mexican Pasta Salad. My suggestion for serving is extra salsa, taco sauce, and salad dressing over the entire salad.

Verdict: This is one of our favorite pasta salads. Exchanging meat for the Happy Little Plants Protein puffs and adding the taco seasoning to the pasta instead of the meat was a great idea. I highly recommend a good salsa or taco sauce and sour cream with the salad. It made the after taste of the protein puffs much more palatable. I had two of our family members who eat just about EVERYTHING try this recipe and they each ate slightly less than one serving because there was too much of the protein puff flavor.

I hope they continue to work of the flavor of these snacks because the idea is perfect the after flavor is not. I will happily taste them again once they have worked on them because I really want a product like this on the market.