Summer Macaroni Salad
When we grill, my mother asks me to make this summer pasta salad. To make it extra creamy, I like to keep a small amount of dressing separate and stir it in just before serving. —Carly Curtin, Ellicott City, Maryland
Ingredients
- 1 package (16 ounces) elbow macaroni
- 1 cup reduced-fat mayonnaise
- 3 to 4 tablespoons water or 2% milk
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1-1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 1 small sweet yellow, orange or red pepper, finely chopped
- 1 small green pepper, finely chopped
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 1 celery rib, finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
Reviews
Very simple recipe. Not a whole lot of depth, but tasty. I'd add more spices next time I make it.
Very tasty. I added chopped zucchini and sliced olives. This recipe is great for using lots of veggies.
The recipe is great we made a couple of slight changes, neither of us like the celery so we remove that and add chopped up cucumbers, we also add chopped up hard boiled eggs. Along with one of these reviews we prefer the salad dressing to mayonnaise, we believe it gives it more flavor, for us anyway.
I added finely chopped green onions to the mayo the night before and put it in the fridge to kind of blend the flavors together. Also, I did as one of the other posters suggested and didn't add all the dressing until just before time to serve, since it was already good and cold anyway. Added one small dash of the dry powder ranch dressing mix to the mayo-onion mixture, as well. If you're looking for more flavor, add more ranch or any of your other favorite spices, but it was great just the way I made it and I followed the recipe just the way it's written other than the extra green onions and the sprinkle of ranch dressing mix/powder. Great for summer picnics in the backyard.
Whenever I make macaroni salad, regardless of the ingredients, I use Ken's Lite Northern Italian salad dressing instead of mayonnaise. You do not have to worry about keeping the salad cool although I put the container in a bed of ice for an outdoor party.
This sounds like a true winner regarding ingreds. I’ll be giving this a try
It was a little bland, not much flavor.
Delicious! Not a bite was left over. I added a drained can of diced tomatoes & kalamata olives. I also added some spanish spices. I'm sure it would be just as good as it was written, but for our meal, I added these items. Definately, a keeper!
We did like this, but a good idea would be to make extra dressing and add it before serving since ours did soak up the original quickly and became dry. I cooked the pasta in water flavored with Tony Chachere's seasoning for more flavor and since it's summer, we have tomatoes out the wazoo so some pieces were added. This really is a great recipe and will be used again - thank you for posting it.
Made it. I did not have any bell peppers to add. It sure was good tasting. Will make ti again without the bell peppers. This is my go to salad.