Name: Paula's Macaroni Salad
Ingredients: 1 lb salad macaroni; 12 medium green onions, sliced; 4 hard-boiled eggs, chopped; 1 cup thinly sliced celery; 12 slices crisply cooked bacon, crumbled; 1 cup dill pickles, chopped; 1½ cups mayonnaise; 1 tbsp mustard; 1 tbsp horseradish; 1 tbsp dill pickle juice; Salt and pepper

Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,832 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Dill + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together134 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Dill + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together560 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Celery + dilltop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together382 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salad macaroni: Forms the bulk of the salad and holds the dressing between its curves.
Mayonnaise: Provides the creamy fat base that coats the pasta and binds the salad together.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add richness and soft texture from the cooked yolks and whites.
Dill pickles: Contribute acidity and crunch that cut through the richness of the mayonnaise.
Mustard: Adds sharp, tangy flavour that balances the sweetness of the dressing.
Bacon: Adds smoky, salty flavour and crisp texture to the salad.

The step that matters

Rinse and drain the macaroni well. Rinsing cools the pasta and stops residual starch from making it gluey, while thorough draining keeps excess water from thinning the mayonnaise dressing.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, celery, dill, mustard, horseradish, pepper):

Beetrootfits better
Lettucefits better
Broccolifits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, celery, dill, mustard, horseradish, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Bacon	1 slice cooked (8g)	43
Celery	1 stalk (40g)	6
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Dill	5 sprigs fresh (1g) / 1 tsp dried	4
Mustard	1 tsp (5g) yellow	3
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Salad	not in our table	0
Macaroni	not in our table	0
Horseradish	not in our table	0

Paula's Macaroni Salad