Never the Same: Macaroni Salad

I’m not a recipe follower.  I don’t know if that’s good or bad.  I think good.

Awhile ago I gave you my recipe for ring macaroni salad.  (find that recipe HERE)

Well the other day I decided that I was going to make macaroni salad.  I went to the cupboard to check the noodle selection and there was ring macaroni.  Yahoo.   It’s my favorite!

I started boiling the noodles only to find that the ham I thought was in the refrigerator was gone.  I went to the cabinet thinking DARN…I’m going to have to use tuna for the meat.  I don’t like that as well but oh well.  My goal has been to use what’s in the cupboards so I was sticking with that and planned to use it but I opened the door and saw two things….

Spam and Queso cheese.  Hmmm.  That sounded interesting.  Time for a recipe tweak.

So I chopped up the Spam into small pieces.  Chopped an onion and just then our son Buck called on the phone.  He asked what I was doing and I said making macaroni salad.  He said, I hope you’re putting celery in it.  Hmmm..  I wasn’t.  I didn’t have any.  So as I was talking to him I walked to the cupboard and got the celery salt.  I sprinkled a few shakes into the salad.

I got done talking to him and chopped an onion.

Now for the Queso.  How was I going to incorporate that??  I ended up taking Mayo, Queso, salt and pepper and a little milk to smooth it out and used that as the sauce.

Oh my…check it out….
I wish you could taste it!!

It is the VERY best macaroni salad I have ever made.  Seriously, I love it.  I like  it LOTS more than putting cheese chunks in.  Every bit is slightly queso flavored this way.

The only thing I did wrong was to only make one box of rings worth.  Queso in my macaroni salad is going to be the new standard.  I didn’t add a lot…only enough for flavor.

This was an open jar….


I think it’s events like this…being out of ham and making due that challenge me to be a better cook and happily, what results from my experiments is typically better than any original recipe I ever had!

Yes, as always…I apologize that I have no real recipe.

10 thoughts on “Never the Same: Macaroni Salad”

  1. My mom’s macaroni salad uses spam and peas with celery salt and mayo; I’m not quite sure how she came to use this as her standard combo, but I really like it that way.

  2. Love trying different macaroni salads. Never thought of using queso cheese. Your’s sounds great. Using spam in place of ham is a good choice. I like celery, onion, and peas. Sometimes shredded carrot and hard boiled eggs. My husband called it cleaning the refrigerator

  3. I use spam all the time in my macaroni salad and just love it! Always have it on hand just in case I want to make some. By the way love your new sewing machine! What a great find!!

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