I love my macaroni salad and it’s hands down the BEST Macaroni Salad ever!!
This is probably one of the easiest recipes I’m sharing with you, it is perfect for BBQ party, potluck party or meal prep for the week! It lasts up to 7 days in the refrigerator!
This macaroni salad is also amazing with my garlic shrimp or lemongrass shrimp. Like Hawaiian style!
Cook macaroni in salted boiling water (the water should be taste like ocean water!) by following the directions of the package you are using. I recommend you to cook fully, not ardent for this recipe. Also, if you can find macaroni with texture, that would be the best option for this recipe!
Meanwhile macaroni is cooking, finely chop onion, celery, imitation crab meat and Canadian bacon. Canadian bacon adds delicious meaty bites and smokey flavor into this recipe! But you can use any other lunch meat you have in your refrigerator or omit if you want to.
You can also use any other vegetables you’d like to add in the macaroni salad. Red, yellow or green bell pepper, corns (corn will be really good!), carrot, peas, fennel… whatever you like!
Drain the macaroni and place on a large mixing bowl. Let it cool.
Add mayonnaise, sugar and black pepper directly into macaroni. Mix well until macaroni is well coated with mayonnaise and seasonings.
Add slat to your taste, I didn’t add any because my macaroni was perfectly seasoned by cooking in salted water.
TIP- Cool the macaroni first before add mayonnaise to maintain the creamy saucy texture!
Now toss chopped onion, celery, imitation crab meat and Canadian bacon into the macaroni. Time to mix mix mix!
Keep the macaroni salad in a refrigerator for a couple hours before serving.
When they macaroni salad set for a couple hours, the texture and the flavor will be so much better!!
Enjoy!
The BEST Macaroni Salad
- Total Time: 12 mins
- Yield: 8 1x
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup dried macaroni
- 6 Tbsp Korean or Japanese mayonnaise
- 2 tsp sugar
- pinch of black pepper
- 1/2 small onion, finely chopped
- 1 large or 2 small stalks celery, finely chopped
- 4 sticks imitation crab meat, finely chopped
- 3 slices Canadian bacon, finely chopped
Get Recipe Ingredients
Instructions
- Cook macaroni in salted boiling water by following the directions of the package you are using. I recommend you to cook fully, not ardent for this recipe. Drain the macaroni and place on a large mixing bowl.
- Add mayonnaise, sugar and black pepper directly into hot macaroni. Mix well.
- Now toss chopped onion, celery, imitation crab meat and Canadian bacon into the macaroni.
- Keep the macaroni salad in a refrigerator for a couple hours before serving. Enjoy!
- Cook Time: 12 mins
7 comments
Hi! I was wondering what kind of sugar you use. It almost looks pinkish with larger crystals than regular granulated sugar. It’s probably a fancy sugar I’ve never heard of. I’ve bought all the ingredients for the salad and will tag you when I post pictures! Have a wonderful day!
This pasta salad really is THE BEST!! I couldn’t find the mayo it called for so I used regular mayo. I also doubled the recipe and cut down the sugar by half. Love love love this recipe! Delish! My new go to macaroni salad!!
Thank you!! the mayo can be found at a lot of different asian grocery stores!
I don’t understand the directions regarding the macaroni pasta. The blog says allow macaroni to cool before adding mayonnaise to keep it creamy but the directions at the bottom says Add mayonnaise, sugar and black pepper directly into HOT macaroni. Which one is it? Do I mix it with hot macaroni or let the macaroni cool first?
I seen that you use Canadian bacon in your macaroni salad but I was wondering would it be ok to use chunky small squares of ham instead?
Yes! You can that would work just as well!
Yummy but will cut the sugar by half since it was a bit too sweet for me. Had to balance it with more salt and mayo