Enjoy ten easy gluten and dairy-free macaroni salad recipes that are perfect for picnics, potlucks, or a quick and easy side dish for warm days.
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Macaroni salad is a quintessential picnic food that’s perfect for the spring and summer months. Whether you’re looking for a cold side dish for home or something to bring to a friend’s house for an afternoon barbecue or picnic, you’ll find that macaroni salad is a great option.
The best part of macaroni salad is that you can make it your own with different dressings and mix-ins. While the standard recipe for macaroni salad calls for mayonnaise, onion, celery, bell pepper, and a few extra flavor additions like onion powder, vinegar, mustard, and even a bit of sugar, you can get creative with whatever you like.
Some fun additions to make your macaroni salad a little different are:
- Bacon
- Avocado
- Olives
- Black beans
- Cilantro
- Corn kernels
- Cooked chopped chicken
- Jalapeno
- Cherry tomatoes
- Different dressings, like Italian, ranch, sesame-soy, etc
- Other herbs and spices for added flavor: curry powder, pesto, fresh basil or green onions, etc.
Mixing and matching your favorite flavors into a classic macaroni salad recipe is a quick and easy way to make this dish your own.
Which type of gluten-free pasta should I use in macaroni salad?
Gluten-free pasta is great when warm, but once it’s cooled off, it has a tendency to firm up and fall apart or get rubbery. The best type of gluten-free pasta I’ve found for cold macaroni salads are those with a rice flour base.
Jovial brand has a great option that once it’s been cooked, cooled, and tossed with a little olive oil works really well for cold gluten-free pasta salads.
10 Gluten and Dairy-free Macaroni Salad Recipes
Get a few delicious macaroni salad recipes to try this spring and summer for all your cookouts, barbecues, picnics, and backyard dinners. These are all gluten and dairy-free!
1. Vegan Macaroni Salad
This macaroni salad is perfect for a crowd. You can make it gluten-free by using gluten-free elbow pasta, and it’s dairy-free and egg-free with the vegan macaroni dressing. You’ll love that you’re getting a few extra veggies too.
2. Gluten-free Macaroni Salad
Gluten-free macaroni salad is made with gluten-free pasta, mayo, sweet relish, diced onions, diced olives, celery, and green onions. With sweet relish and black olives, this is a new take on macaroni salad I’d be interested to try!
3. Vegan Macaroni Salad
This vegan macaroni salad is a great option to bring with you to get-togethers. It’s made in just 15 minutes and is loaded with peas, celery, red pepper, red onion, vegan mayo, lemon juice, sweet pickle relish, dijon mustard, sugar, and garlic powder. To make it gluten-free, swap out the pasta for gluten-free elbows.
4. Classic American Macaroni Salad
You got to love a recipe that’s Top 8 allergy-friendly, especially when loading up a dish to share at get-togethers. This recipe is loaded with gluten-free elbows, red bell pepper, celery, carrots, red onion, vegan mayo, vinegar, dijon mustard, and black pepper.
5. Gluten-free Pasta Salad with Banza Pasta
Enjoy this recipe that’s made with chickpea pasta from Banza, loads of vegetables like broccoli, bell peppers, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes. This recipe calls for cheese, but it is easy to omit this ingredient for a dairy-free option. Instead of a mayo-based dressing, enjoy an Italian dressing on this recipe.
6. Gluten-free Macaroni Salad
Try this gluten-free macaroni salad that’s takes only 30 minutes to prep, uses a homemade dressing with mayonnaise, mustard, and loads of seasonings, and adds some crunchiness with chopped cucumbers, bell peppers, and onions.
7. Hawaiian Macaroni Salad
Hawaiian macaroni salad is made with many similar ingredients as a classic macaroni salad recipe, but adds in grated carrots and lots of big flavors from paprika, turmeric, and optional cayenne pepper.
8. Easy Macaroni Salad
This recipe isn’t necessarily gluten-free, but if you choose a gluten-free pasta option, it can easily be made so. Enjoy this salad with chopped hard-boiled eggs, pickles, celery, red onion, and a homemade dressing to add loads of flavor.
9. Gluten-free Macaroni Salad
This macaroni salad from Fearless Dining is made with gluten-free macaroni, celery, red bell pepper, grated carrot, red onion, and parsley. It all comes together with a homemade dressing made of mayonnaise, white vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt, pepper, honey, cayenne pepper, and an option for sweet relish.
10. Mayo-free Macaroni Salad
I know some folks have a real aversion to mayonnaise, which is why I’m adding in an option for a mayo-free salad option to our roundup. This recipe calls for Greek yogurt instead of mayonnaise, but you can use any plain non-dairy yogurt in place of this ingredient to make it work.
I hope if you’ve been looking for a tasty macaroni salad recipe that’s both gluten and dairy-free that you’ve been inspired to try one of these recipes for your next potluck, picnic, or barbecue.
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