Easy Ham and Jalapeño Macaroni Salad

As a self proclaimed "foodie", I have to admit that I love a good potluck. Ever since the days when I worked the normal 8-5 office job, I always looked forward to them. Trying other peoples favorite dishes, exchanging a recipe or two. I love it!

I think potlucks and pasta salads should be synonymous. By the end of a potluck there's more than a few macaroni salads sitting at the serving table. This salad though, is guaranteed to always be the star of the show.

One weekend a few years ago we had a barbeque at our house and invited quite a few of our friends and family over. It was a potluck, so everyone was bringing a side dish to go with the barbequed meat. Yes, we had about 3 pasta salads at this particular event. But one of my friends brought this salad with her. It was amazing! I couldn't stop thinking about it, and a week or so later I emailed her asking for the recipe. I was shocked at how simple it was. The following 4th of July we had a few friends over and I made it for them. It's been  requested ever since, by every one of my friends, my husband, and my mother in law. I've made this for baby showers, relaxed barbeques, and even a formal Thanksgiving last year. One of my best friends since middle school was coming to visit from out of state and joined us for Thanksgiving. As I was going over my menu with her, she requested I make this as well since she had visited previously when I made it for another occasion. Now personally I think of macaroni salad as summertime fare, served with barbecued ribs, corn on the cob, and watermelon. But I can always make an exception for this one, and I'm sure once you make it you'll see why.

The ingredients are so simple, but something about the way it all comes together is wonderful. The only thing that's been changed from the recipe my friend gave me in the beginning was the addition of black olives. You can also change it to suit your diet and use whole wheat pasta and/or light or organic mayonnaise.
More often than not I use the light mayonnaise and it's just as good!



Ingredients:

• 16 ounces uncooked Ditalini, or pasta salad
• One 15 oz. can of corn, drained
• small can of diced jalapeños, or 2 fresh jalapeños pickled or roasted then diced
• 1/4 cup chopped or sliced black olives
• 8 ounces of thick cut lunch meat style ham
• 2 and 1/2 - 3 cups mayonnaise

Directions:

Fill a large pot with water, add a little salt and olive oil and bring to a boil.
Add the uncooked pasta and boil for 6-8 minutes until cooked. 

Drain the pasta in a strainer and run cold water over.
This will stop the cooking process, as well as cool the pasta down to make the salad.

Place the cooked pasta in a large bowl and prepare your other ingredients.
Chop your veggies, open your canned items and drain them, etc.

Whenever I think of quality canned vegetables I think of Del Monte. I use their canned corn with no salt added, it makes me feel less guilty about using canned vegetables over fresh since there's none added in the canning process. Drain your corn and add it to your bowl of pasta.

Now add your diced jalapeños, your chopped or sliced olives.I actually have a funny little story about these jalapeños, I'm sure you'll enjoy -  I usually use canned jalapeños, but this time I only had fresh ones. 
I wanted to cook them so they wouldn't be crunchy, but didn't have time to pickle them. I should have roasted them, but instead I chopped them up and sauteed them with a tiny bit of oil. They came out wonderfully and were great in the salad, but I definitely would NOT recommend doing it this way.
Right at the end of the saute process when they were just about done, this overwhelming spicy scent was in the air and everyone started choking and our eyes were burning and watering! 
We had that cough and tickle in our throat for a few hours.
Yes, even Mama Harris learns something new! Ha! 

Chop up your ham, add it in and mix it all up together.

Now add your mayonnaise and mix it all up. It's going to taste very creamy at this point and the bite of the  jalapeños may not come through at this point. Refrigerate the salad for a few hours so all the flavors can set, and then it will be ready to serve. At this point it won't taste so creamy, and that spice in it will shine!

Now it's ready to serve! It's addicting, and thankfully this recipe makes a lot so there's plenty for leftovers!
I'm actually eating a bowl right now as I type this up for you!

Enjoy!

 Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. All thoughts are my own.