Side dishes · Pasta & grain salads

Macaroni salad

Name: Macaroni salad
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 25 min
Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients: 450 g dry elbows pasta, cooked, rinsed cool; scant 1/2 cup mayonnaise; 1/4 cup whole-milk Greek yogurt; 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar; 2 tsp Dijon mustard; 2 tsp granulated sugar; 2 stalks celery, diced fine; 1/2 red bell peppers, diced; 1/4 red onions, minced; 3 tbsp reduced sodium dill pickles, chopped; 3/4 tsp salt; 1/2 tsp black pepper

The deli-counter cookout side, balanced at home: elbows, crunchy vegetables and a creamy dressing that doesn't drown the bowl. The potato salad's carbier cousin.

Time: 25 min (15 prep + 10 cook)
Servings: 8
Per serving: 315 kcal
Protein: 9 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

450 g dry elbows pasta, cooked, rinsed cool1062 g

Dressing

scant 1/2 cup mayonnaise100 g
1/4 cup whole-milk Greek yogurt60 g
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar15 g
2 tsp Dijon mustard10 g
2 tsp granulated sugar8 g

2 stalks celery, diced fine100 g
1/2 red bell peppers, diced80 g
1/4 red onions, minced50 g
3 tbsp reduced sodium dill pickles, chopped60 g
3/4 tsp salt4 g
1/2 tsp black pepper1 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Cook the elbows a minute past al dente, rinse cool, and drain hard.
Whisk the dressing; toss with the pasta while it's still barely warm so it absorbs instead of coats.
Fold in the vegetables and pickles.
Chill an hour minimum, then taste again — cold dulls seasoning, and it will want another pinch of salt and splash of vinegar.

Why this score

easy to overeat

Dense calories with little protein, volume or fiber to fill you up.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

11% of kcal

68% water

10 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 2518 kcal goes into the pot, 1550 g of ingredients comes out as ~1612 g of food → 156 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 156
Protein: (11%); 4 g
Fat: (32%); 5 g
Carbohydrates: (57%); 22 g
of which sugar: 2 g
Fiber: 1 g
Sodium: 237 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

More side dishes

Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.