All American Macaroni salad is famous summer picnic and potluck food. Count on it! Macaroni salad is sitting right next to apple pie on American picnic tables everywhere. A summer potluck staple. This yummy salad is on every mother’s list of family favorite summer foods. Enjoy!

All American Macaroni Salad

Dave adores macaroni salad. Just like the ones my Grandma used to make.

All my years as a child, every summer at our family potlucks, Grandma Cash would bring Macaroni salad. Always teeny, tiny elbow macaroni noodles drowned in her yummy mayonnaise dressing with a bit of onion and celery for crunch and flavor.

green onion, black olives and Garden grown roasted red  peppers

Once introduced to Grandma’s macaroni salad Dave told me to get the recipe. I remember asking her how she made it. She gave me a rather bewildered glance. “You don’t know how to make macaroni salad?” I knew right then I flunked basic womanhood, in her opinion. Or my Home Economics teacher failed (we used to have those). Or maybe my mom.

Somehow, I had fallen through the cracks of basic American female education.

I looked helplessly back and didn’t reply. She rattled off the recipe in a rather vague way and went off to talk to someone. Of course my pen and paper weren’t handy.

So it went. The mysterious, perfect recipe for her Macaroni salad eluded me.

Garden Green onions

I would have left it at that. I am quite content to eat macaroni salad in any form. We love noodles! Our Pasta  Bacon Salad, Mediterranean Macaroni Salad, Tortellini Salad With Pepperoni  are all here on the blog for you. Kayti shared her Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad too.  Our family loves all of those richly flavored pasta salads.

But it was never quite the same as grandma’s classic old american favorite. I love color and powerful flavor and balsamic dressings….Dave Loves the good ole American style macaroni salad just like Grandma Cash used to make. With those impossible to find teeny tiny elbow macaronies!

Eventually I took a stab at it.  Grandma used celery and her home canned dill pickles. Dave hates celery in his salad and loves sweet relish. But he joyously gobbled every bite of hers (go figure).

black olives and garden grown roasted red peppers. Directions for roasting peppers are in this post.

This salad is a compromise between Grandmas memory and my own tastes. I adapted this Macaroni salad to Dave’s Taste too. He loved it, but he wanted twice as much dressing! I used Bragg’s apple cider vinegar (with the Mother) to give the dressing a bit of tang. And doubled the amount of dressing for my sauce loving husband. Salt and pepper are a MUST on this salad to bring out the flavor.

I used our homegrown roasted red peppers from the freezer but you can find Jarred Roasted Red Peppers here on Amazon or in most grocery stores.

All American Macaroni Salad

All American Macaroni Salad:

I still did not ‘get’ Grandma’s Macaroni salad. But we love it this way and hope you will too. This is a good salad to make the night before and chill so the flavors merge well.

NOTE: I did NOT assume you wanted a double portion of dressing. But if you, like Dave, want a macaroni salad you slurp off a spoon, rather than balance on a fork; double the dressing! 🙂

Extra dressing is great for this salad leftover too. The noodles do absorb some of the sauce. It does get drier as leftovers. but I still liked it. Larger noodles also require more sauce.

INSTRUCTIONS:

NOTE: There are no hard and fast rules to this salad. It’s all to taste. Enjoy running after your family members with a spoon while making the dressing until you’re happy with it. The proportions here are what I did, adjust as you see fit.

You can use honey(or even Maple syrup) instead of sugar to sweeten if you wish. But it will affect the flavor. Quinoa noodles would also work for this salad if you want a gluten-free option and don’t mind a little different noodle texture. 

• Boil the elbow Macaroni Al Dente. About 10 minutes. Do NOT overcook! Drain and set aside. ( if you find those tiny noodles use less cooking time, about half)
• Chop the drained black olives, roasted peppers and green onions fine while the noodles cook.

For the dressing:

• Whisk the vinegar, sugar and mayonnaise together until it’s smooth (Here’s my recipe for  Homemade Heart Healthy Mayo.) Add milk and whisk until it’s pourable.
• Mix the veggies and sweet relish into the noodles.
• Add the dressing to the noodle mixture and gently stir until every noodle is covered with dressing. Your salad should be saucy.
• Chill in the fridge for several hours.
• Remove from fridge, refresh the salad dressing, if required (you may even need to make more if it all soaked into the noodles) and mix more into the salad.
• Serve chilled

All American Macaroni Salad in Grandma’s Bowl 🙂

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION:

Number of servings: Approximately 15 -1 cup servings

250 Calories/Serving:

• Fat            14 g
• Carbs       27 g
• Protein     4 g

Print

All American Macaroni Salad

Prep Time

50 mins

Cook Time

20 mins

Total Time

1 hr 10 mins

 

All American Macaroni salad is famous summer picnic and potluck food. Count on it! Macaroni salad is sitting right next to apple pie on American picnic tables everywhere. A summer potluck staple. This yummy salad is on every mother's list of family favorite summer foods. Enjoy!

Course: Pasta salad, Salad, Side Dish

Cuisine: American

Servings: 15 1 cup servings

Calories: 250 kcal

Author: Diane

Ingredients

• 4 Cups Elbow Macaroni cooked and cooled
• 1 15 oz. can black olives chopped
• 1 Cup green onions (about 4 including green tops) Finely Chopped
• 1 Cup Roasted peppers Finely chopped

For the Dressing:

• 4 Tablespoons Braggs vinegar with the Mother
• 1/4 Cup organic sugar to taste
• 1 Cup mayonnaise
• 2 Tablespoons milk
• 1/4 Cup sweet relish

Instructions

1. Boil the elbow Macaroni Al Dente. Do NOT overcook! Drain and set aside
2. Chop the drained black olives, roasted peppers and green onions fine
3. Whisk the vinegar, sugar mayonnaise together until it's smooth. Add milk and whisk until it's pourable.
4. Mix the veggies and sweet relish into the noodles.
5. Add the dressing to the noodle mixture and gently stir until every noodle is covered with dressing. Your salad should be saucy.
6. Chill in the fridge for several hours to overnight.
7. Remove from fridge, refresh the salad dressing if required(you may even need to make more if it all soaked into the noodles) and mix more into the salad.
8. Serve chilled

Recipe Notes

This is a great salad to make the day before serving to allow the flavors to merge.

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