LD and I have a tradition. Every year, I ask him what dishes he’d like me to make for his birthday, and every year - without fail - he picks mac salad.** That’s it. Just mac salad. A huge frikkin tub. Which he feasts on for like the next week.

And I have to admit, it’s pretty good. Probably not the healthiest meal I’ve ever blogged, but really effin yummy. Plus it’s a great dish to end the summer with.

Don’t let the photo scare you. I know it looks like some scary radioactive science project, but orange macaroni isn’t all that photogenic. That, and my gourmet food critic photographic isn’t all that gourmet.

I developed my own recipe by veganizing this non-vegan recipe. (Again courtesy of All Recipes, I think.)

Macaroni Egg Salad

Ingredients

2 cups macaroni/small pasta
6 eggs
1 small onion, peeled and chopped
1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 ½ cups mayo
½ cup plain yogurt
4 tablespoons ketchup
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
2 teaspoons paprika
½ teaspoon garlic salt

Directions

1) Cook macaroni; rinse and drain

2) Combine ingredients and refrigerate

And here’s my vegan version.

Kelly’s Egg-free Mac Salad

Ingredients

4 cups macaroni
3 cups vegan mayo (e.g., Nasoya Nayonaise or similar)
8 tablespoons ketchup
4 tablespoons parsley
1 teaspoon garlic salt

Directions

1) Combine the mayo, ketchup, parsley and garlic salt. Taste and experiment with the mix as desired.

2) Cook macaroni; rinse and drain.

3) Combine ingredients; add extra mayo (or pasta) if the salad is too dry (moist). Flavor to taste.

4) Refrigerate and enjoy cold.

Notes

If memory serves correctly, I usually double this recipe to fill up our largest Tupperware container.

LD tops his bowl of mac salad off with some hot sauce and (vegan) Baco Bits, but I wouldn’t recommend adding these ingredients in until you’re ready to down a bowl of the salad. The hot sauce is a pretty individual taste, while the Baco Bits will get all soggy if you let them soak in the mayo/ketchup mix for an extended period.

You’ll also notice that I eliminated a few ingredients from the original recipe; feel free to experiment and reintroduce them to my veganized version. Except for the eggs, of course!

Another suggestion: press a block of firm or extra firm tofu, chop it up into egg-sized bits, and add it to the salad. I do this when I make (real) egg salad for my doggehs, and they love it.

——————-

* Initially I named this recipe “Kelly’s Eggless Mac Salad”, but upon seeing the title in my post draft, I realized how incredibly stupid I was being. Just as I refer to myself as childfree, not childless, so too is this recipe egg-free, rather than eggless. “Less” implies that something is missing, be it from my life (baybeez) or my meal (eggs) - when in fact I’m happily free of each. So egg-free it is.

I guess now it’s time to tackle my habitual use of “meatless” vs. “meat-free”!

** Happy birthday, Shane!

(Crossposted from.)

——————-

Tagged: recipe recipes vegan veganism vegetarian vegetarianism pasta macaroni mac salad macaroni salad eggs eggless tofu nayonaise flickr photos elbows eggfree herbivore meatless meatfree