Maybe if I cut up some giardiniera in it?

I like Reser's Macaroni Salad better than any mac salad that I've ever made or eaten. Buy it at Wal-Mart in the deli section; Sam's Club probably has it.

Or, here's a link to a copy-cat recipe (that I've not tried):

http://www.food.com/recipe/resers-macaroni-salad-copycat-518092

Normally, I shun ready-made foods but make an exception for this salad. The macaroni is nice & 'toothy'.

So you are only going for the elbow macaroni/mayo style salad? What about colored rotini and veggies with Italian dressing? Personally, ordinary mac salad I'd pass on.

We love roasted veggies (carrots, zucchini, onions,peppers, asparagus etc etc) mixed with penne, bow ties, etc with a vinaigrette. Feta cheese chunks as well if I have it.

I like all sorts of pasta salads. My favourite is one posted by Woodie many moons ago but it has salami in it.......so here is another of my favourites. It's a nice change up from old faithful.....

Santa Fe Pasta Salad

Servings

1 pkg. (16 oz.) rotini pasta (or penne or whatever)

1 -1/4 cups tomato juice

1 -1/2 Tblsp. olive oil

1 Tbl red wine vinegar

1 Tsp chili powder

1/2 Tsp paprika

1/2 Tsp salt

1/4 Tsp garlic powder

1/4 Tsp ground black pepper

1/2 Cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 Cup cooked corn kernels

1/4 Cup chopped scallions

1/4 Cup chopped cilantro

2 Tbl diced green bell pepper

2 Tbl diced Roma tomato

Boil pasta according to pkg. directions. Rinse under cold water and drain well.

Stir together tomato juice, olive oil, vinegar, chili powder, paprika, salt, garlic powder and black pepper. Toss with pasta in a large bowl. Refrigerate for 2 hours.

Combine Parmesan cheese, corn, scallions, cilantro, green pepper and tomato. Combine with chilled pasta; cover and refrigerate for at least 8 hours. Season with cracked black pepper before serving if desired. Yield: 8 servings.

My best pasta salad is very simple...assorted cut up vegetables, onion, cuke, radishes, tomatoes, broccoli, carrots, pea pods, cauliflower....and cooked pasta dressed with a honey dijon balsamic vinaigrette. If you want more zing, add some ancho chili powder to the dressing and/or some chopped jalapenos.
I make it often for funeral lunches and have extra cooked pasta on hand if the crowd is larger than expected. Usually i make it about half vegetables and half pasta.

I make a Pioneer Woman one that's Southwestern, with black olives, cumin, and salsa. We like it. She calls it Mexican macaroni salad, but we think it's more Southwestern than Mexican so that's why I labelled it that.

I've had more bad macaroni salads than good (traditional mayo mac salads -- not "pasta" salads) and would always pass on them UNTIL I tried the one from Pioneer Woman -- I do buy the Wickles Pickles (which gives it some zest) but could you substitute candied jalapeños for the pickles in her pasta salad to give it more zing that you seem to be craving?

What about using green olives instead of black?

I agree. And since it's macaroni salad (a salad of macaroni) rather than pasta salad (a vegetable salad with pasta), may I suggest ditalini? It's also called "salad macroni" and I think it's the best texture for the purpose. Second best is teeny tiny little elbows. But for the zing, besides Ci_lantro's good suggestions, you may need more salt. It could come from more pickles or more pickle juice, brinier olives or a little olive brine, or more salt in the pasta water, or actually adding salt to the salad.

I don't use a lot of salt, and there are plenty of salty things in this salad, but the salty things may actually be making the macaroni taste bland.

I've looked locally for the sweet and spicy pickles, but I haven't seen them around here...I'll have to keep looking...

I salt the water when I cook the pasta, but for my pasta vegetable salad, I add no other salt....there is always salt on the table and I rarely see it used on the salad, and I get rave reviews. Olives in salads add salt as do capers, pickles and cheese....lemon and vinegar makes a great seasoning, without salt.

My "rule" when making a pasta veggie salad is that the vegetables should be cut the same size as the pasta used. So ditalini would mean a chopped salad. I usually use a penne rigatta or a fusilli and sometimes just plain old elbows.
I know there seems to be some cachet about farfalle, but in my experience they often stick together. Radditore and orichette are others I like for a pasta salad that is not heavy with mayonaise....not that there is anything wrong with mayonaise but I think when you say pasta or macaroni salad, that's what comes first to mind....and many don't like it. For me you could just mix elbows with some onion, green peppers and cucumber and I would chow down....but....many think that's "soooo school lunch!"...LOL!

I almost never make macaroni salad, as I prefer rotini or rotelli to macaroni, and I make pasta salad with those in a Margarite style; i.e., with tomatoes, basil, olive oil, black pepper, and mozzarella cheese, plus a bit of some Balsamic or red wine vinegar.

If I were to make a macaroni salad, I would use giardiniera, as you suggested, and I would add oregano and basil to it, fresh or dried. I like the cauliflower part of the giardiniera best, along with the pickled peppers. I also add hard boiled egg to it, and so it is something like egg salad with macaroni and pickled cauliflower added. I often make a muffuletta relish (using giardiniera) that is good with pasta. I add capers and olives instead of salt.

Linda, I'd rather eat your pasta salad. It's similar to what I make and doesn't need salt. Mac and mayo salads, however, can be excruciatingly bland until you hit a shock of olive then drop off again. Notice how many people have said they don't like it.

Annie D., I'm not familiar with sweet and spicy pickles either, but I looked, and there are several brands that sell them nationally. There's a store locator on the Wickles site. I bet you could just take some sweet pickle and put them in a jar with some Tabasco or crushed red pepper or chopped jalapeños for a day and use those.

Annie, I just finished off a jar of Trader Joe's Hot & Sweet Jalapeños--I put the last few of them, chopped up, in my egg salad. Not too hot-spicy, but zippy. I usually put them on nachos. Might be worth a try. :O)

Smiles,

Sooz

At one place where I worked we used to dice small lots of vegies and add them to spirali with thousand island dressing. I loved it.

After seeing this thread the other day, I decided to give Ree's macaroni salad a try. DH won't eat a macaroni/pasta salad that isn't mayonnaise based, so I'm a bit limited there. I made several substitutions and additions, because I didn't want to go shopping and used what I had in the pantry. And DH insisted on having peas and boiled eggs in it. Those are his "musts" for macaroni salad. We both loved the result. Obviously, I didn't have that specific pickle; instead, I used sweet pickle relish and some juice from escabeche I canned last summer. How's that for spicy? DH was also concerned that it didn't have mustard in it. He kept trying to get me to put ingredients in it that I used in my regular go to salad. I wanted different. The dressing Ree made accomplished that. He did suggest that I make it again and add shrimp to it. Sounds good to me.

I rarely miss a Pioneer Woman episode, but must have missed that one. Thanks for guiding me to it.

I am not a fan of mayo so I like Lars' recipe above. When I thought about a good recipe for macaroni salad I kind of put something together in my head based on recipes that I remember eating in Italy. Very similar to Lars' recipe but using basil, sun dried tomatoes, and olives with small cubes of fresh mozzarella. I would throw in some capers and maybe a hint of garlic too.

I did manage to find wickles pickles today, so hopefully that'll spice up the salad and I'll like it better.

Many (many) moons ago I was trying to duplicate a local restaurant's rotini salad with a tomato based dressing that was basically a red French dressing. One time I ran out of my homemade French halfway through so I mixed up an envelope on good seasons Italian to . It turned out to be our favorite. ..the Italian cut the sweet of the French.

I ordered some Wickles Pickles and some Wickles Wicked Jalapeno Relish from Wal-Mart. They came in yesterday. Interested in tasting them on sandwiches.

I made the salad up with wickles pickles and it was very good. I think I could've added even more pickles and juice as, by the time it gets spread amongst all the noodles, it wasn't spicy at all...though the pickle I tasted just to see was mucho spicy!