14 Timeless Tuna Salad Recipes
Matt Taylor-Gross / Food Styling by Ali Domrongchai
Whether you keep it simple or fancy it up, tuna salad makes for a timelessly tasty, satiating light meal or snack, regardless of the season. Here, we've included lots of takes on this salad staple. Of course we've got the quintessential classic made with canned tuna and mayo, but we also have recipes with succulent seared tuna, a Spanish-style pasta and tuna salad, and a couple of Niçoise salad variations. Whether you're using water or oil-packed tuna from your pantry or buying it fresh, these are the tuna salad recipes to keep on hand.
Italian Tuna Salad
Frederick Hardy II / Food Styling by Melissa Gray / Prop Styling by Christina Brockman
This bright, balanced Roman-style tuna salad combines oil-packed jarred tuna, sun-dried tomatoes, red onions, juicy Castelvetrano olives, and celery, all tossed in a lemony honey-mustard dressing. This recipe is a perfect example of how a handful of pantry ingredients can become a meal that sings. It all comes together in 20 minutes.
Sorghum and Albacore Tuna Salad with Preserved Lemon
Sorghum adds a pleasantly chewy bite to this simple salad from Roxana Jullapat, the co-owner and baker of Los Angeles restaurant Friends & Family. If you're going to use sorghum grains as a salad base, she advises, presoak the sorghum for at least 8 hours to get the best texture, wash the grains before cooking to remove extra starch, and cook them with abundant water, like pasta.
Tuna Salad
Matt Taylor-Gross / Food Styling by Ali Domrongchai
Tuna salad is a classic for a reason. This combination of tuna with a light mayonnaise dressing works on a sandwich, in a salad, or scooped up with crackers, cucumber slices, or chips. We like to add Dijon mustard to the mayo to give it a little bite; squeeze fresh lemon juice into the mixture for more tang. If you're looking for extra pops of salty umami, stir in a tablespoon of capers.
Pan Bagnat (Niçoise Salad Sandwich)
The pan bagnat is essentially a Niçoise salad in sandwich form. For this version, tuna is pureed with red wine vinegar, olive oil, anchovies, and garlic to form a unique sandwich spread inspired by tonnato sauce. Spreading a tangy tuna dressing on the cut sides of the ciabatta allows it to get absorbed into the bread, giving the sandwich plenty of flavor while making it easier to eat.
Spanish-Style Pasta Salad with Tuna and Marinated Tomatoes
Spanish pantry staples like mildly spicy and sweet piparra peppers and tangy sherry vinegar bring bold flavor to this hearty pasta salad from 2015 F&W Best New Chef Katie Button. "I love this pasta salad because it incorporates fresh summer ingredients, like tomatoes and herbs, with staples I already have on hand in the pantry," she says. "It's a perfect low-cook dish that you can make ahead in large batches and eat all week; it keeps getting better with time."
Butter Bean, Tuna, and Celery Salad
Big, creamy butter beans give a tuna and celery salad terrific heartiness. The salad would also be delicious spooned over slices of warm grilled country bread.
Bacon-Wrapped Tuna Steaks with Frisée and Avocado Salad
Chef Katy Sparks likes to treat tuna steaks like beef. Here, she wraps them in bacon as she would a beef tenderloin, which not only adds a subtle smoky flavor to the fish but also keeps it moist.
Hot Niçoise Salad
Gwyneth Paltrow transforms one of her favorite salads, the Niçoise, into a hearty one-dish dinner by roasting tuna steaks on a tangle of beans, tomatoes, anchovies, and olives.
Warm Wheat Berries with Tuna, Fennel, and Olives
For this Mediterranean-inflected salad, chef Seamus Mullen likes poaching fresh tuna or bonito in olive oil; store-bought fish jarred in olive oil works very well, too.
Tuna and White Bean Salad
Purists would insist on imported Italian canned tuna fish for the Tuscan classic, but we think plain old tuna from the supermarket is just fine, too. However, make sure the fish is packed in oil; not only will the tuna be infinitely more flavorful, we use the oil as part of the dressing.
Seared Tuna with Chimichurri Sauce and Greens
Here, chef Eric Ripert serves this thinly sliced tuna alongside mounds of mesclun, both dressed with chimichurri sauce.
Fresh Tuna Salad with Avocado
Nan McEvoy created this salad after falling in love with the incredible olive oil-poached tuna prepared by her friend Paul Bertolli, the former chef at Oliveto's in nearby Oakland. McEvoy uses albacore tuna here, but any fresh tuna will do. In addition to spooning the salad into avocado halves, she also uses it as a sandwich filling and a topping for crostini.
Heirloom Tomato Salad with Tuna Confit
This is chef George Mendes’ version of the simple tomato salads common in the Algarve region of southern Portugal. For a shortcut, use best-quality, olive oil–packed canned tuna.
Italian Tuna, Green Olive, and Tangerine Salad on Grilled Bread
At Frasca in Boulder, Colorado, chef Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson preserves his own tuna in olive oil to make this terrific tuna salad, brightened with tangerine and green olives and served on garlicky grilled bread.
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