This is a fresh take on classic macaroni salad, inspired by my dad. If you invite him to a picnic, barbecue, housewarming, or block party this time of year, odds are good he’ll show up with a macaroni salad. He’ll wheel it around in a cooler and when the time is right, he’ll flip the top and pull a cornflower blue bowl from the ice. The bowl is what I notice first, ceramic with a flower detail on the inside rim, it’s part of a set of three my grandma left when she died a few years back. The one he uses is medium-sized, and makes its appearance with plastic wrap across the top, secured with a rubber band. 
I’ve had my dad’s macaroni salad twice in the last ten days, and thought I’d share my take the classic. There are a couple of tricks I keep up my sleeve. I’ll also offer up some tips and considerations to play around with depending on who you might be sharing your salad with. For example, there’s no reason you can’t whip up a vegan version if needed. Or, let’s say you have a gluten-free friend, you can make a quick swap using chickpea pasta elbows, no problem. I’ll note tweaks down below and in the recipe headnotes!

A Few Nutritious Tweaks

The mayo: Most classic macaroni salads are not-very-good-for-you mayo bombs. I’ve tried to offer up a few alternative ideas here, ways you can maintain all the things you love about macaroni salad, and make it more healthful as well. For example, this recipe calls for mayo. You can use classic, commercial mayo, but I also link to a simple vegan mayo I like to use here instead, it brings the spirit of a mayo-based salad with a fraction of the calories, fat, and it’s vegan.

The pasta: You can experiment with different elbow macaroni. I often use whole wheat elbow macaroni. I also really like chickpea based elbow macaroni (like this one), and I’m seeing it in an increasing number of stores. The later is a great option for mixed-crowd parties or households avoiding gluten.

Seasoning is Key

The last thing I’ll add here is this. You really need to taste and adjust as you toss this salad. I’ve shared general amounts, but keep adding pepper, or lemon juice, or salt until the flavors really pop off the pasta. It’ll happen. Under-season and you end up with a flat-tasting salad. :/

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