Some weeks doing research for a recipe takes me down the rabbit hole. This was one of those weeks.
Everyone has their own recipe for macaroni salad, including the expert chefs. Read enough of them, and you’ll find that not only do the ingredients vary widely, but in some cases the directions do as well. I found one recipe for a highly reputable chef that insisted that the macaroni should be cooked “al dente,” while another — also from a highly reputable chef — that recommended overcooking it by one or two minutes. Plus, the amount of mayo to use was all over the map, the one with the most using four times as much as the one with the least.
For some, macaroni salad is a tasty, flavorful side dish. For others, it’s a creamy, bland but filling “palate cleanser” between other dishes that have strong flavors of their own. How you construct your macaroni salad changes a lot depending on which of these you are aiming for.
At the end of the day, the right recipe is the one that you like the most and that fits in with everything else you’re serving. So here’s a great and delicious starting point, from which you can make all the adjustments you like. I suggest that rather than mixing in all of the mayo dressing at once, you add it a bit at a time until you just hit the point where there is “enough.” And don’t forget to write down how much you added (and any other changes you make) so that you can repeat them next time.
Recipe here.
Enjoy,
Kevin
