Potluck season might just be my favorite season of the year. It’s just about the only time—aside from Thanksgiving—when no one questions you for eating a plate full of sides. Because, if I’m being honest, a hamburger or hot dog is really the side dish to the glorious amounts of potluck salads on my plate.
My mom is an absolute legend when it comes to potluck recipes. From pierogi casserole to ham and cheese Hawaiian roll sliders, her dishes are consistently the first to disappear at any gathering. And while I love each and every one of her go-to dishes, her macaroni salad is the one I can never get enough of.
The Secert To My Mom’s Macaroni Salad
Macaroni salad is in the trifecta of potluck salads, alongside pasta salads and potato salads. And, after trying other recipes and store-bought options, I will only ever make my macaroni salad the way my mom does. That’s because her dressing never reaches a runny, gloopy consistency; instead, it stays thick and creamy thanks to one secret ingredient: Miracle Whip.
Before you knock the Kraft Heinz product, remember that Miracle Whip is branded as a “dressing,” meaning it’s perfect for this application. The creamy dressing is basically mayo, but with just a few additional, flavor-enhancing ingredients that you already use in macaroni salad, like mustard, paprika, and garlic.
So, using Miracle Whip lets you skip the need for making a full mayonnaise, mustard, vinegar, and sugar dressing. And, with no vinegar, the dressing won’t thin out in the macaroni salad.
My mom does, however, add yellow mustard to the macaroni salad for an extra depth of flavor and moisture.
In addition to her simple dressing of Miracle Whip and mustard, she follows the Amish macaroni salad recipe and adds chopped hard-boiled eggs—plus onions, celery, green pepper, salt, pepper, and paprika.
How To Make My Mom’s Macaroni Salad
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Like most of my mom and grandma’s dishes, this macaroni salad doesn’t have a written recipe. In fact, when I recently texted my mom and asked for the recipe, she responded back “elbows, onion, celery, Miracle Whip, mustard, green peppers, eggs, of course salt, pepper, and paprika.”
Basically, what that means is everything is to taste.
To make her macaroni salad, my mom boils macaroni noodles according to package instructions. While they’re cooking, she finely dices an onion, a few stalks of celery, and a green pepper, and roughly chops the hard-boiled eggs (typically about one egg per cup of noodles).
Once the pasta is cooked, she drains it and allows it to cool slightly. Then, she adds the macaroni noodles to a bowl with the vegetables, eggs, Miracle Whip, mustard, salt, pepper, and paprika. The dressing is made to taste, adding in about two spoons of Miracle Whip to one spoon of mustard each at a time.
She usually makes her macaroni salad ahead of time, so she’ll add in an extra squeeze of mustard and dollop of Miracle Whip at the end to account for the noodles soaking in the dressing. Then, as the leftovers progress, she’ll add more Miracle Whip and mustard if the mac salad looks like it’s drying out.
It’s a taste-as-you-go recipe, but once you make it, you’ll realize just how simple—and delicious—it really is.
