Mac Salad

The thing is, I never don’t want mac salad. Yes, you might associate noodles swimming in mayo with peak summertime lunching, – and that’s true – but I could eat mac salad gleefully all year long.

Really, I love all pasta salads. Find me on Cloud Nine shoveling any kind of cold short noodle in sauce – pesto and balls of fresh mozzarella, Italian dressing and black olives, lots of gushy canned tuna.

I especially love Mexican ensalada de coditos (elbow macaroni salad) or Hawaiian mac salad, and this recipe falls somewhere between these two paramours. Ensalada de coditos has a mayonnaise-based dressing, but it also typically includes some zing from mustard, vinegar, or pickled jalapeño brine. Corn kernels, crunchy veggies, and diced ham make frequent appearances. Despite its simplicity on the other hand, Hawaiian mac salad is more than your average side dish. It requires Best Foods or Hellmann’s brand mayo, and leans simpler and sweeter. The noodles are intentionally overcooked, vegetable additions of onion or carrot are usually grated so they meld into the mix, and any acid is meant for balance, not tang.

My mac salad takes elements of both these heavy hitters. Like Hawaiian mac salad, mine is generous with the mayo, and the onion and acid are meant to disappear into the background. However, mine does incorporate a few of my favorite things that would more likely appear in a Mexican pasta salad – canned corn, cubed cheese, and diced processed meat.

I go with Mexican mortadella which is basically bologna. Upon inspection, it includes unspecified poultry and pork fat, along with soy, potato starch, and flour fillers. It is bouncy, mild, and meaty, and I love it. If processed meat freaks you out… grow up. As far as substitutions go, you could leave out the meat or cheese, or swap out the veggies, but please, do not sub out the mayo. I like Hellmann’s (or generic Hellmann’s) here – Duke’s could work with a little extra sugar, but Kewpie would be too rich. Yogurt is too tangy, and don’t even get me started on Miracle Whip.

Ingredients

2 cups dried small pasta such as mini shells, elbows, or ditalini
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons mayonnaise, divided
1 teaspoon lime juice (about half a small lime)
½ teaspoon sugar
1 15-ounce can corn, drained (yields about 1 cup of kernels)
1 medium carrot, peeled and grated on the large holes of a box grater
¼ cup very finely chopped white onion
1 cup diced mortadella (about 8 slices)
½ cup cubed mild cheese such as queso Chihuahua, queso asadero, Monterrey Jack, or mild cheddar

Cook your pasta in boiling, heavily salted, water for about one minute longer than al dente. The bite should be gone, but the noodle should not yet be ballooning. Drain and rinse in cold water.

In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 cup of mayo, lime juice, sugar, and salt to taste. Add the corn, grated carrot, chopped onion, mortadella, cubed cheese, and cooled noodles. MIx well, and taste for salt. Let the mac salad sit in the refrigerator for at least one hour so flavors can meld. Before serving, add the remaining 2 tablespoons of mayo, stir to combine, and taste it one more time. Chances are, after absorbing some of the sauce, the mac salad will need a little more salt. Eat it straight out of the mixing bowl, or serve alongside ham, American cheese, sliced tomato, and white bread sandwiches with mayo and yellow mustard for a truly royal court.