Cool and creamy macaroni salad recipe

Our creamy macaroni salad wraps pasta elbows and chopped celery and onion in a creamy dressing. We cooked the pasta until tender not just al dente and left a little moisture on it. The pasta absorbed the water rather than our creamy dressing (which could have left our salad dry and bland). We added a fair amount of lemon juice to the salad to balance the richness of the mayonnaise. This was one of the rare occasions in which we preferred garlic powder to fresh garlic because the flavor wasn’t as sharp and the powder dissolved into the smooth dressing. Cooking the pasta until it is completely tender and leaving it slightly wet after rinsing are important for the texture of the finished salad.