Classic Macaroni Salad

Back in the day I used to work from the upstairs office at my parents house. Every morning, I would load our older dog, Gracie (RIP), into the car and the two of us would make the commute about 8 minutes across town.

This was one of Gracie’s favorite ways to “work” in the upstairs office at her grandparents house

A lot of my lunches during this time consisted of whatever happened to be in the fridge. Danny used to call this going to shop at “SueMart”. I think that it made my mom happy getting to spend time with me at lunch. Looking back, I wish that I hadn’t always been in such a huge rush to eat and get back upstairs to the office.

This macaroni salad was one that she made often in the summer months. I think that she knew that I was a sucker for any type of cold pasta salad and that is likely why she made it so often.

I have tried to make this a few times (I have an email dated March 30, 2014 where my mom emailed me the recipe) and have struggled getting the dressing to pasta ratio correct. I don’t know for sure, but, my assumption after making it this time is that my mom would cook the entire 16 oz box of pasta to use in this recipe instead of the 8 oz that it calls for.

Sherlock was indifferent towards this recipe due to the inclusion of celery in the ingredients list

At any rate, this time around I called an audible and only mixed half of the dressing into the pasta + vegetables and it wound up tasting damn near identical to how I remember it from those days eating lunch in the kitchen with my mom. I prepared it for my lunch a few days the same way that she would. She would chop up some type of deli meat and add it to a bowl with the macaroni salad + fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. Then she would hit it with a little dash of cider vinegar to mix everything up before eating.

This one took me back and I will definitely be making it again.

I omitted the chopped onion from this recipe. I only used about half of the dressing when I mixed it with the pasta and vegetables.