Creamy Macaroni Salad

Fourteen weeks. The second trimester begins. Dr. Hernandez says I can expect the nausea to ease, the energy to return, and something called "the glow" to intensify. Grace and Priya claim the glow is already at maximum intensity. James says I look the same. James is wrong, but I love him for the consistency.

The baby is the size of a lemon. A lemon. I made lemonade on Saturday and held a lemon in my hand and thought: this is you. This is the size of you right now. You are a citrus fruit with a heartbeat and I would walk through fire for you and you do not even have fingernails yet. (You do have fingernails, actually. The app says fingernails develop at week fourteen. My baby has fingernails. I am overwhelmed by fingernails.)

Amazon this week was a blur of meetings and architecture documents. I led a critical review for a new Alexa feature that will launch in Q1. The technical work was engaging — the kind of complex systems thinking that I genuinely enjoy. But I noticed something new: I am mentally partitioning my day. 9 AM to 5 PM is Amazon-Stephanie, the Principal Engineer who cares about latency and uptime. 5 PM to 9 PM is Banchan-Stephanie, the founder who cares about recipe cards and subscriber growth. 9 PM to sleep is Mom-Stephanie, the pregnant woman who reads about fetal development and eats ginger snaps and falls asleep with one hand on her stomach. The three Stephanies do not always agree. But they are all me, and they are all trying their best.

James has been researching daycares. We are not due until March but the good daycares in Seattle have eighteen-month waitlists, which is a sentence that should be illegal. He has signed us up for five waitlists. He presented the daycare comparison spreadsheet to me on Thursday. It had color-coded columns for cost, location, philosophy, teacher-to-student ratio, and "proximity to H Mart" (his joke; it stayed in the spreadsheet). I approved the spreadsheet. I did not approve the joke. The joke is now permanently in our family Google Drive.

Jisoo and I talked about the Busan trip. She is preparing the apartment for me — she is cleaning the second bedroom, buying new sheets, stocking the kitchen with ingredients for everything she wants to cook for me. She said, "I am going to feed you for two weeks. You and the baby. You will come home five kilos heavier." I said, "Umma. I am already gaining weight." She said, "Good. More weight for the baby. More love for the baby. Eat." The Korean grandmother philosophy of pregnancy nutrition: eat everything, all the time, and the baby will be strong. Western medicine says "balanced diet and moderate exercise." Korean grandmothers say "eat." I am following both sets of instructions.

The recipe this week is a Korean-style soy-braised chicken — dakjjim — that I made on Sunday for meal prep. Chicken pieces (thighs and drumsticks), braised in soy sauce, mirin, garlic, ginger, gochugaru, with potatoes, carrots, and onions. The sauce reduces to a sticky glaze. The chicken falls off the bone. The potatoes absorb the sauce and become the best part. I made a large batch and portioned it into five containers for the week. Meal prep is the pregnant engineer's survival strategy. Cook once, eat five times, do not think about dinner while reviewing microservice documentation. The system works.

The dakjjim gets all the glory — and it should, because those sticky, soy-glazed thighs portioned into five neat containers are genuinely the reason Mom-Stephanie survives the week. But Amazon-Stephanie also needs something cold and ready-to-grab alongside them, no reheating required, no thinking involved. That’s where this creamy macaroni salad earns its place in the rotation. I made a big bowl on Sunday at the same time the chicken was braising, and having it sitting in the fridge all week — cool, tangy, substantial — felt like exactly the kind of quiet, unglamorous act of self-care that the three Stephanies can all agree on.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 25 min (plus 1 hr chilling) | Servings: 8

Ingredients

2 cups (8 oz) elbow macaroni, uncooked
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for pasta water
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
3 stalks celery, finely diced
1/2 cup red bell pepper, finely diced
1/4 cup red onion, finely diced
3 tablespoons sweet pickle relish
2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and chopped
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped (optional)

Instructions

Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook elbow macaroni according to package directions until just tender (al dente). Drain and rinse under cold water until completely cooled. Shake off excess water and set aside.
Make the dressing. In a large bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, sour cream, apple cider vinegar, mustard, sugar, garlic powder, salt, and pepper until smooth and fully combined.
Add the mix-ins. Add the cooled macaroni, celery, red bell pepper, red onion, pickle relish, and chopped hard-boiled eggs to the bowl with the dressing. Stir gently until everything is evenly coated.
Taste and adjust. Taste the salad and add more salt, pepper, or a splash of vinegar as needed. The dressing should be tangy and creamy with a slight sweetness from the relish.
Chill before serving. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving. The macaroni will absorb the dressing as it chills; if it seems dry after chilling, stir in an extra tablespoon or two of mayonnaise.
Garnish and serve. Transfer to a serving dish and top with chopped fresh parsley if desired. Serve cold. Keeps well in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days — making it perfect for weekly meal prep.

Nutrition (per serving)

Creamy Macaroni Salad — The Meal-Prep Side That Keeps the Week Running