Macaroni salad is a staple of the Hawaiian plate lunch. Typically scooped onto lunch plates along with a couple mounds of white rice, the seemingly divergent starches combine forces as ideal pairings to just about any meat to complete the dish. The beauty of macaroni salad is that it is quite forgiving and welcomes a wide range of customization and experimentation. It's a casual dish that easily adapts to any type of food or occasion—it is, in other words, quintessentially local. Below, I share a
Fancy Hawaiian Macaroni Salad recipe for
What Micky Eats...At Home.
Fancy Hawaiian Macaroni Salad (Adapted from
I Believe I Can Fry)
- 1 lb cellentani pasta
- ½ cup apple cider vinegar
- 1½ cups milk, divided
- 2 cups mayonnaise, divided
- 4 green onions (scallions), thinly sliced
- 1 carrot, peeled & grated
- 1 celery stalk, minced
- 1 - 6 oz can of fancy crab meat, drained
- salt & pepper
- Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil. Add 1 tablespoon salt and the pasta; cook until VERY soft, about 15 minutes.
- Drain and return to pot; add the cider vinegar and toss until absorbed. Let cool for 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, whisk together 1 cup of the milk, 1 cup of the mayonnaise, ½ teaspoon of salt and 2 teaspoons pepper to make the dressing.
- Once the cooked pasta has cooled for 10 minutes, whisk in the dressing. Let cool completely.
- Add the remaining ½ cup milk and 1 cup of mayonnaise, along with the scallions, carrot, celery, and crab meat.
- Stir to combine, then season to taste with more salt & pepper.
- Chill for at least one hour before serving.
This macaroni salad is 'fancy' due to the added crab meant and unique-shaped pasta. Feel free to omit the crab if that's not your thing, or even use regular elbow pasta - as that is what is typically used in macaroni salad. However, if you still follow the dressing recipe, that is truly what makes this version Hawaiian. A whole pound of pasta is a lot - and was more than enough for Keith and I, but we don't mind leftovers.
The apple cider vinegar gave that extra tang to counter the sweetness from the carrots and crab meat. All in all, I feel I nailed the recipe and it went perfectly as a side dish to accompany our homemade Hawaiian plate lunch. I would definitely make this Fancy Hawaiian Macaroni Salad again and again for summer potlucks and bbqs.
