Classic Macaroni Salad

Ah, the Classic Macaroni Salad. My late Grandma Barb used to make one similar to this and I have to say I was inundated with thoughts of her while I was making it yesterday. It’s funny how certain foods (and songs!) remind you of people. My Gram loved to cook and Macaroni Salad was one of her specialties. She made it for all kinds of family gatherings, back yard bbqs and picnics up the canyon. I did some digging to see if I could find her recipe written down somewhere but couldn’t find it, which made me wish like crazy she was still just a phone call away (and not just so we could talk about salad, truly). She was super great at visiting, that’s for sure. I have a whole pile of things to tell her when we see each other again. 🙂

The recipe I have to share with you today is as close as I could get to my Gram’s recipe. It’s creamy, slightly sweet and would be perfect for the holiday weekend that will be shortly upon us. Summertime is on the horizon, friends. That is something to be happy about, yes?

Let me show you how to make it happen…

1. Grab 5 large eggs, place them in a pot and pour cold water over the top so that the water covers them by 2 inches. Bring the water to a boil.
2. Let it boil hard for 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat and cover with a lid. Allow the eggs to sit for 10 minutes (be careful not to remove the lid).
3. Drain the water from the pot and pour cold water over the eggs until cooled. Remove the shells and slice them into small pieces. (Complete tutorial on cooking hard boiled eggs found here).

4. Boil a medium-sized pot of water. Salt it generously (about 2 Tb) and cook the pasta according to package directions. (Tutorial on perfect pasta making HERE).
5. Pour the cooked pasta into a colander and run cold water over it vigorously until the pasta cools down.

6. While your pasta and eggs are cooking, dice 1 onion and 3 stalks of celery into small pieces.

Remove about 1/2 cup of pickles from the jar and chop them up into small pieces. Carefully not to drain the juice, we will be using it the dressing.

7. Place 1 C mayonnaise into a glass measuring cup. It’s best to use full fat mayo for this recipe, gang. Add 1 Tb sweet pickle juice, 1 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1 Tb honey mustard, 4 Tb vinegar and 1/2 C sugar to the mayo. Give it a nice stir to combine.

8. Place the pasta, eggs, celery, onion and pickles into a large bowl.

9. Pour the dressing over the top and stir to combine.
10. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 24.

Looks like summer time picnic food to me. 🙂

Here’s the handy printable…