Summer-Fresh Macaroni Salad

Not Your Grandma's Macaroni Salad

Get ready for this one! I am going to shatter everything you know about macaroni salad with a new set of flavors, techniques and ingredients. Yes, it will still be a rich, creamy, crave-worthy, addictive macaroni salad that will make you the macaroni boss, but we will level up from the 1980s to 2024+.

Here are the essentials for this salad:

1. Amplify the interior garnish so it isn’t 99% noodles.

2. Match the size of the interior ingredients with the size of the noodles so you get the perfect forkful.

3. Season the veggies in the salad separately so the flavor carries through the whole salad.

There is nothing I hate more than eating a pasta salad and having all of the interior garnish fall to the bottom of the bowl. With each forkful, I want a balanced bite with all of the ingredients. The key to solving this problem is to cut your ingredients to match the size of the noodles. For example, if you make a penne salad, cut your veggies into matchsticks. If you are making a salad with fat rigatoni, cut your veggies/chick/etc to match that noodle as well.

In this salad, I opted to go with shells instead of the traditional macaroni because I want the flavorful sauce to pool inside the shell with each bite. I also cut the veggies into small bias cuts to match the relative size of the macaroni noodles.

To season the inside of the salad, I add all of the veggies to a bowl while the noodles are cooking, salt them, and then add my vinegar-based dressing directly to the veggies. It almost gives them a light pickle. In theory, you could stop at that step and have a delicious veggie salad or add the noodles, sour cream, and mayo to finish — your call.

Ingredients:

1 lb box of shells (pasta)

3 ribs of celery sliced and cut on a bias (see photo)

2 red bell peppers (see cut below in photo)

2 yellow bell peppers (See cut below in photo)

4 Roma tomatoes (with the insides cut out and sliced into strips, then bias cut; see photo)

2 carrots peeled, sliced, and cut on a bias (see photo)

2 shallot finely diced

For the veggies:

2 tablespoons kosher salt

1/4 cup honey

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 cup red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon freshly chopped oregano

1 cup freshly chopped parsley

3 tablespoons freshly chopped thyme

1 tablespoon Tapatio (or any hot sauce)

2 teaspoon ground coriander (dry)

1 tablespoon garlic powder

To finish the sauce:

2 cup mayo

1 cup sour cream

Cut for the veggies:

Cut all the veggies into strips, then 1 inch pieces cut on a bias (diagonally)

Instructions:

Add your noodles to boiling water and cook until they are soft (past Aldente).

While the noodles are cooking, add your carrots, celery, peppers, tomato, and onion to a bowl and toss in the 2 Tablespoons of kosher salt. This will season the veggies and add a ton of flavor. Let the salt work its magic for about 5 minutes.

Then add the rest of the ingredients EXCEPT the mayo and sour cream.

If you want, you can serve this as is - the perfect veggies salad.

To complete. When the noodles cook, strain them and run cold water over them until they are cold. Then toss with the veggies and add your mayo and sour cream.

Taste the salad for salt and pepper and serve!

Optional garnishes and additions:

Chopped bacon

Chicken

Smoked salmon

Shrimp

Grilled chopped veggies

Hard-boiled eggs

Chopped steak