Deli Style Macaroni Salad or Cold Pasta Salad is a colorful, delicious salad recipe prepared with grated carrot, onion, and bell pepper tossed in a creamy mayonnaise-mustard dressing.

I love this classic American macaroni salad with mayo. This homemade pasta salad is better than the Deli salad available at the store. Perfect on its own for a meal or side dish for BBQ, summer potlucks, and picnics.
Try choosing the pasta shape, that will hold onto the dressing. Elbow macaroni, small shells, or even spiral-shaped pasta work great. You can also add more healthy and colorful veggies like red radish, celery, red cabbage.
Check out more Macaroni recipes from my blog Mac and Cheese (Instant Pot), Macaroni puliyogare, Vegan Macaroni and Cheese.
How to Make Classic Macaroni Salad recipe
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the macaroni, and cook until tender, about 8-10 minutes. Rinse under cold water and drain.
Mix together the mayonnaise, mustard, white vinegar, red chili powder, sugar, salt, and ground pepper in a large bowl.
Stir in the carrot, onion, celery, colored bell pepper, and cooked macaroni. Mix well. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving, but preferably overnight.
Deli Style Homemade Creamy Macaroni Salad is ready to serve.
Tips & Variations
- You can add vegetables of your choice like jalapeños, celery, lettuce, zucchini, cucumber
- Add an extra tablespoon of mayonnaise to the salad before serving if you want deli-style macaroni salad to be more creamy.
- You can also add some shredded cheese.
More Salad Recipes
- Chickpea Salad with Yogurt dressing
- Boiled Peanut Salad
- Chickpea Cucumber Salad
- Avocado Cucumber Tomato Salad
- Creamy Cucumber Salad
- Thai Salad with peanut dressing
More Pasta Recipes
- Creamy Tomato Pasta
- Butternut Squash Pasta
- Avocado Pasta
- Creamy Spinach Pasta
- Mac and Cheese (Instant Pot)
Macaroni Salad (Cold Pasta Salad)
Ingredients
- 8 oz elbow macaroni (about 2 cups), uncooked
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
- 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
- ½ tablespoon sugar
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ⅛ teaspoon red chili powder
- ¼ cup onion finely chopped
- ½ cup celery chopped
- ¼ cup red bell pepper finely chopped
- ¼ cup yellow bell pepper finely chopped
- ¼ cup green bell pepper
- ¼ cup carrot grated
- 2 tablespoons spring onion to garnish
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the macaroni, and cook until tender, about 8-10 minutes. Rinse under cold water and drain.
- In a large bowl, mix together the mayonnaise, mustard ,vinegar, red chilli powder, sugar, salt and pepper. Stir in the onion, celery, colored pepper, carrot and macaroni. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving, but preferably overnight.
Notes
- You can add vegetables of your choices like jalapeños, celery, lettuce, zucchini, cucumber
- Add an extra tablespoon of mayonnaise to salad before serving if you want salad more creamy.
- You can also add some shredded cheese.
Nutrition
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