The World's Best Macaroni Salad

This was a top secret family recipe for years, but I'm going to share it with the world now. It was mainly a secret, because I liked making people try and guess the secret ingredient.  (Spoiler alert!  it's mustard). 

This is my daughter's favorite food. She would eat it for every meal if I let her.  When the other kids in preschool draw pictures of their favorite food, (usually ice cream and pizza) she always draws macaroni salad. (she painstakingly draws each piece of macaroni, and red dots for paprika.)  It ususally gets at least a million thumbs up. (that's the emma scale) sometimes, if i'm having an off day, it only gets a 100 thumbs up.  :)

You will need:

Pasta (we like elbows)
Mayonaise
Yellow Mustard
Vinegar (cider is best, but we're out, so i'm using rice vinegar today)
Paprika

That's it! If you want to get fancy, you can add chopped up celery. It adds a nice crunch. 
We use the protein pasta, because it has a lot of protein and fiber. We like the taste, and it's more nutritious than regular pasta. It also fills you up better. 

Step 1 Make the pasta

Boil a pot of water. 
Put the macaroni in, and cook it following the instructions on the box. You want it to be throughly cooked. 

When cooked, drain it, and rinse with cold water. 

After that I like to put the collander in the bowl, and fill it with cold water. That way there aren't any hot spots left. 

Drain the pasta throughly. I like to pat it dry with a paper towel. 

Now put the pasta in the bowl. 

Comments

[sunshiine]

You can tell she loves this dish! Thanks for sharing.

[zurichko]

My Gramma used this recipe as well. She would add egg, olives and celery to it as well. She would make us de-vein the celery...yup, de-vein them. I don't understand it either.