I’ve been ‘assigned’ to bring a macaroni salad to a pot luck dinner tomorrow.
I suck at making macaroni salads – mine always seem way blander and blaaaaah than others I’ve eaten.
Anybody have a recipe to share? Or should I just go buy a big tub from Costco and transfer it into one of my bowls.
Just got to Hawaiian barbecue joint and buy a batch of theirs. I can never make a homemade macaroni salad that tastes half as good as the stuff they serve at plate lunch joints.
I remember this one famous youtube video where a woman makes macaroni salad starting with two cups of sugar and a jar of mayonnaise. 
I make mine with Ken’s Steakhouse Ranch dressing, crumbled bacon and chopped fresh green onions. Also big chunks of tomato if they’re in season. When I make the macaroni itself I add some shredded cheese, usually Monterey Jack while the pasta is still a bit warm. Not too warm, as I want it to bond but not melt completely. I generally make it with shells but I’ve done rotini and macaroni this way too. Everyone in my family loves this stuff so in the summer I’ve even been known to add leftover grilled chicken and just serve it all together as a cold meal on the day after a cook-out.
I’m sure a different Ranch could be used but I prefer Ken’s myself.
Macaroni salad, or can it be a pasta salad? For the latter, just grab a bottle of Greek Feta salad dressing. Makes a wonderful pasta salad with bowtie pasta, diced salami and grape tomaotes.
You forgot the can of sweetened condensed milk:
Business casual all the way.
That sounds dandy!
Add a couple cans of medium shrimp, onion, celery, green pepper (all minced), some salt, and a bunch of dill weed, and enough mayo to make it bind together.
Oh, lots of good ideas, but this sounds tasty, fast, easy … and I actually have the ingredients on hand. 
Ranch dressing has a lot of garlic in it, doesn’t it? Maybe that’s what I’ve been missing in my made from scratch dressings.
Yeah, if it doesn’t have to be the mayo type of dressing, the best dressing is:
an 8-oz can of tomato sauce
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon basil
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl. Best to use fresh/jarred herbs but dried works too.
If anyone wants the rest of the recipe, other than the sauce, let me know. It’s the best pasta salad ever and everyone loves it. Of course, pasta salad recipes are pretty flexible anyway so it’s not that hard to figure out what to put in it. I find that medium-sized pasta like rotini works better than macaroni though.
As an alternative, I like using bruschetta. Mix it up with the cooked and cooled pasta, add a bit more veg if you wish and voila, easy.