The Palace boss brought to an end an often-turbulent five-year spell at St James' Park to take over in south London at the turn of the year and their first meeting since then ended in stalemate.
Papiss Cisse opened the scoring for the visitors, whose fans berated Pardew on only a handful of occasions throughout the night, but that was to be Newcastle's only shot on target as the Eagles turned up the heat.
It was his substitutes that Pardew had to thank for preventing just a second defeat since his arrival at Selhurst Park as Bolasie, back from African Nations Cup duty, whipped in a superb cross which was converted by top scorer Fraizer Campbell with a little under 20 minutes remaining.
"I thought we really took the game to Newcastle," Pardew said.
"But really it was the bench that salvaged the game for us. Yannick's cross was of the highest order and he had no right to put in a ball of that quality from the room he had.
"It was a great goal for us and gave us time to get a winner - and I thought there would only be one winner at that point but we could not quite get a second goal.
"He is an exciting player - I have been an opposing manager to him - with great power and technique and it gives you an unpredictability in your team which I quite like."