This Macaroni Salad is the perfect side for those summer BBQs! It combines elbow macaroni, hard boiled eggs, celery, and sweet pickles with a creamy, bright mayonnaise sauce. This recipe is extremely easy and flexible. You may add, subtract, and adjust ingredients to your liking.
Macaroni Salad Ingredients
There are so many variations of macaroni salad. While this recipe is fairly straight-forward, it is anything but boring! The combination of these ingredients is so dynamic – sweet, slightly tangy, crunchy, creamy. It is so simple yet so satisfying. We include the following:
- Elbow macaroni
- Fresh parsley
- Celery
- Hard boiled eggs
- Red onion
- Sweet pickles & pickle juice
- Mayonnaise
- Sour cream
- Salt, Pepper, & Garlic powder
- Red wine vinegar
- Dijon mustard
- Sugar
Feel free to omit any ingredients to fit your palette. Some other add-ins might include olives, bell peppers, and carrots. Experiment and have fun!
Should you peel celery?
Celery is one of those vegetables you don’t really think about much. It is fairly dependable, meaning you can almost always find it in the food store. However, if it was not readily available, imagine how boring your stuffing, potato salad, and macaroni salad would be!
One question you may or may not have asked is if you should peel your celery? The answer is simply, you decide. The outside of celery can sometimes be a bit stringy and unpalatable. By using a vegetable peeler to de-thread the celery, you remove the parts that are difficult to eat. Just start at the base of the celery and lightly drag the peeler up lengthwise. Whether or not I peel my celery depends on if I have time. If time permits, I definitely give it a few scrapes to remove the tough strings. Not enough time? No big deal.
If you don’t end up using a whole bag of celery in one dish (we rarely do), then what is the best way to store it? First, remove it from the plastic bag it came in from the store. Keep unused celery whole (together). Wrap it tightly in aluminum foil, being sure to cover all parts and store it in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator. The reason we use aluminum foil is because it allows the ethylene gas released from the celery to escape but it locks in the moisture which slows spoilage.
Can you freeze macaroni salad?
It is not recommended to freeze macaroni salad. Because mayonnaise is an emulsion, freezing will cause the individual ingredients to separate. Once thawed, the texture and flavor will not be the same.
Tips
- Cooked macaroni – After elbow macaroni is finished cooking, be sure to rinse with cold water to cool it down. Then, add just a splash of olive oil and mix to ensure the noodles do not stick together while you prepare the dressing.
- Hard boiled eggs – I admit I am not the best at hard boiling eggs. No matter what, peeling the shell was very challenging. I happened to see this handy device on Prime day one year and the shells now fall off! I absolutely love it and use it exclusively to hard boil all my eggs.
- Storage – Cover in an airtight container and store for up to 5 days in the refrigerator.
My Preferred Tools
You may already have many of these items in your kitchen. I recommend the following for this recipe:
- Strainer – to drain macaroni
- Peeler – to peel celery (optional)
- Egg Cooker – to hard boil eggs
- Sharp knife set – to chop veggies
- Cutting board – to chop veggies
If you liked this recipe, try our
Macaroni Salad
This Macaroni Salad is the perfect side for those summer BBQs! It combines elbow macaroni, hard boiled eggs, celery, and sweet pickles with a creamy, bright mayonnaise sauce.
Ingredients
- 1 box (16 oz) elbow macaroni
- 2 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
- 1 cup celery, chopped (about 3-4 stalks)
- 5 hard boiled eggs, finely chopped
- ½ cup red onion, minced
- ¾ cup sweet pickles, chopped
- DRESSING:
- 2 cups mayonnaise
- ½ cup sour cream
- ¾ tsp salt
- ½ tsp ground black pepper
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- ¼ cup sweet pickle juice
- 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
- 1 ½ Tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1 ½ Tbsp granulated sugar
Directions
- Step 1 Cook elbow macaroni according to the instructions on the box. Drain, rinse with cold water, and place in a large bowl. Add a tiny bit of olive oil to the macaroni and stir to prevent noodles from sticking to each other. Add parsley, celery, eggs, onion, and sweet pickles to the macaroni. Stir and set aside.
- Step 2 In a medium bowl, mix mayonnaise, sour cream, salt, pepper, garlic powder, sweet pickle juice, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, and sugar together thoroughly. Add to the macaroni and stir until everything is coated.
- Step 3 Cover and refrigerate for at least 1-2 hours prior to serving. Store covered in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
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