Prevent Dry Macaroni Salad With A Simple Trick

A flavorful, creamy all-American macaroni salad is the perfect cookout food that complements any plate of fried chicken or barbecued meat. Plus, another great thing about pasta salad is that it is often made the night before serving and gives you more prep time for other dishes the day of a large meal or get-together. However, this leads to one major problem: The macaroni salad soaks up all the creamy dressing overnight, making for a dry and unappetizing dish. So, how can you prevent this?

Luckily, there is one simple solution and it involves only adding half of the macaroni salad dressing the night before and then adding the second half right before serving. This hack works so well because it allows the pasta to soak up some of the dressing in the fridge, which is an important step needed for the noodles and added vegetables to develop a good flavor. However, it still reserves some of the dressing to make sure your macaroni salad is lusciously creamy when it comes time to serve.

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Why You Shouldn't Just Add All The Dressing At The End

You might be wondering, why add any dressing to the salad the night before at all? Why not just wait until right before serving the salad to add all the dressing at once? While this is definitely something you can do and might save you a little extra time, it will also create a less flavorful pasta salad. This is because letting the noodles and vegetables in a macaroni salad rest for a minimum of one hour (and up to overnight) in at least some dressing is an important step in developing the flavor of the whole salad.

In fact, while the salad rests in the fridge, the flavors actually combine and then become more intense to create that signature, creamy sweetness. If you wait until the last minute to add the dressing, your pasta salad probably won't be as good as it could've been. However, if you combine the chopped vegetables with the dressing and let it sit overnight before adding the macaroni in at the end, you might get slightly better results. The best choice overall for the most flavorful and creamy salad is still adding half the dressing first and then the second half before serving.

Tips For Making Your Macaroni Salad Always Creamy

Although it might seem counterintuitive, it can actually be beneficial to slightly overcook your pasta for macaroni salad. This is because noodles tend to harden in the fridge and overcooking them by a couple of minutes will ensure that they stay soft.

When your noodles are ready, simply pop them in the fridge to chill while you mix up the dressing. Then, pour half of the dressing into the noodles along with the chopped veggies and let the salad chill in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve it. About five minutes before serving you can add the second half of the dressing. Sometimes the flavor of the salad changes over time, so give the pasta salad a quick taste test to see if it needs any more salt or pepper.

You may have heard of another method to prevent pasta salad from drying out — adding oil to the noodles before adding the dressing. This works because oil can act as a barrier that prevents the noodles from soaking up a lot of liquid. However, for macaroni salads that normally don't include oil as an ingredient, the added oil might make for an unpleasant consistency. That's why this trick is best for pasta salads that already call for oil like an Italian or Greek pasta salad, but it won't necessarily work for an oil-light Amish macaroni salad.

Read the original article on Daily Meal.