Nell's Macaroni Salad

"This is the best macaroni salad I've ever tasted." I heard this statement from several people at my husband's BBQ Birthday Party. My father, a macaroni salad connoisseur, could not get enough of it. Yes, the corn is the key, but also the pickle juice really gives it a nice kick. I'd recommend this recipe for any casual party or get-together.

I know... I hate it when people tweek recipes... what's the point... however I loved this recipe base... it is perfect and everyone always asks for the recipes at parties. I do not care for celery... so I omitted that. Corn would probably be good in it... but I am used to it the old fashioned way... so I skipped the corn. I do not care for onion pieces in salads so i substituted onion powder like I always do. I don't measure out the paprika, I just sprinkle across the top after it's made to give it color and flavor. Awesome recipe, it's the only macaroni salad recipe ever use. This does make tons, just the right size for a party, otherwise cut recipe in half.

Reviewer asking reference for "creamy salad dressing" - the original post of this recipe named brand "Miracle Whip" as the creamy salad dressing.

I made this for my husband and his work potluck yesterday. It got rave reviews. The only thing I changed was to add a few sweet pickles, chopped up into it. I will definitely make this one again.

Refreshing! Had to make some minor adjustments to use what I had on hand. Only 2 eggs (I think more would be better), celery seed (no celery), onions and chives (no green onion), red wine vinegar (no pickle juice). Doh, forgot the paprika! But it still got a great response, despite the tweaking.

It was just a macaroni salad - don't see what was extraordinary about it. The corn may "be the key" but I hardly noticed it being there. Made as is, except I used regular onion since I didn't have green onions, and only had dill pickles so used that juice (which didn't do anything for tanging it up). NOTE: I made this again and am upping it to a 4. I guess I thought better of it second time around. I didn't note that I wasn't sure what "creamy salad dressing" was, and the first time I used Marzetti's and second time Miracle Whip, and I had the green onion this time. I really love Marzetti's, so I'm going to assume I was just more in the mood for this this time. (Though I still didn't notice the corn.)

This is my new fav.

We really liked this salad. I had to make a few adjustments due to what I had on hand...no celery, no corn, red instead of green onions, and added some celery seed. We'll try it again according to Nell's formula. Great base recipe!

This was ok, but i didn't think it was great. Although my two year old really liked it!!

This is a great recipe! When I made it, I used a tri-colored, multi-shape pasta. Thanks for sharing this recipe! :o)

Well, call me Clueless! I assumed "creamy salad dressing" meant bottled salad dressing (*blush*), so I used Hidden Valley Ranch & it was delicious! Also used dill pickle juice (hubby hates sweet) and chopped a few pickles to add as well. Really good recipe, thank you!

I know this recipe calls for sweet pickle juice, but I also added some sweet relish because I love it. I thought it was sort of weird to use mayo with Miricle Whip (creamy salad dressing), but they both do have distinctive flavors. Just never would have thought to mix them. I also added some black forest ham chopped up which gave a really nice flavor. Also, honey baked ham works good too. I love corn, but I really just didn't want it in my mac salad. I added a couple of boiled eggs instead. I used smoky paprika which imparted a really nice flavor to me. Now that I think about it, I basically made this the way I make my potato salad except it has mustard in it. Make sure to salt your water when cooking your pasta because you only really get the one chance to get the salt into the pasta. It has a better flavor than adding salt on top of the cooked noodles to me.

This recipe is clear where to add the creamy dressing. I'm assuming in with the mayo, but it should be edited.

This is our most favorite macaroni salad recipe ever. Every time I asked my husband what kind of salad he wanted he always requested this one. The recipe calls for pickle juice, I actually cut up a few pickles and added them to give it an extra crunch.

This recipe was good but I wasn't sure what kind of creamy salad dressing she used in her recipe. Does anyone know or have a suggestion?

This is amazing! I switched the corn for black olives and used thousand island dressing. I didn't have any green onions but I will add them next time. A potluck hit for sure!

made it as recipe said came out perfect. The next day the mac. had soaked up all the creamy goodies so I added more mayo perfect again. KEEPER thank you

We really liked this macaroni salad. The corn is a nice twist. The only change I made is we used dill pickle juice instead of sweet pickle juice.