If you had asked me 5 years ago if I wanted a tuna salad sandwich, I would have turned my nose up in disgust. Up until that point, my only experience with canned tuna had been cold sandwiches picked up from the supermarket as a part of a “meal deal” (a British supermarket staple for any hungry wanderers), the greyish mush of tuna, mayo and occasionally onions that my Dad favoured in his sandwiches, and the small packs of dryly seasoned tuna and crackers that I looked forward to getting at my grandmother’s house when we visited her during the summers. Albeit, I only looked forward to them because it was always paired with a trip to the cool basement to have unsupervised TV time.
My love for tuna salad came into fruition through a series of unfortunate events, and pure desperation. You see, of all the – salad sandwich filling variants, egg was always my first choice. Stinky? Yes. Delicious? Also yes. Egg salads had been in my school lunch rotation since middle school, and that tradition followed me to my first job. I had bought a silver divided lunch container that conveniently slipped into my work bag, and at least twice a week you would find the largest compartment filled with an egg salad sandwich on some variety of bread.
Until disaster struck.
See, I was not only a fan of eggs in salad form – but as a former pescatarian who has only just re-introduced chicken into her diet and was still struggling somewhat with that change, I relied heavily on eggs as a source of protein. This means my single-woman with a penchant for baking household was going though 1-2 cartons of eggs per week. And when you go through that many eggs, you’re bound to run into a few rotten ones. And so I did.
At first, I didn’t let it stop me. I figured that it had to have been something else I ate, my eggs would never betray me in this way. And so the next day I brought my ol’ faithful lunch to work – egg salad. And that night, I found myself struggling to get through a late night work call while squirming around on my bed, praying for the woman on the other end of the line to pick up on the fact that I was on the verge of something terrible. She didn’t, but I survived and the next day I bid adieu to the remaining eggs in the carton.
Now a sensible person may have thought “hey, I just got a bad batch, let me get another carton and move on”, but not me. For whatever reason, I had convinced myself I was allergic to eggs. My experience the night after consuming that egg salad sandwich has been so severe that I became terrified of even eating regular foods that contained egg, like mayo, and began buying vegan options wherever possible. This continued for well over a year, with the mere thought of consuming another egg instantly making me nauseous. But now I had a dilemma – my protein of choice and star lunch option was gone. And I needed a replacement that was just as high protein, just as delicious, and just as easy to make.
Enter tuna salad.
Believe me, I tried every single other combination of sandwich before finally accepting my fate. That tuna and I needed to be reunited, whether I liked it or not. Funnily enough, I had been on a journey of trying foods that I had not been fond of to see if my tastes had changed and I think having a few successful re-tastes helped me go into this whole experience with a much more open mind, much to my delight. And while it did take a bit of trial and error before I perfected my ideal tuna salad, I am happy to say that me and canned tuna are back on good terms, and even though I eventually discovered I am not, in fact, allergic to eggs, tuna salad still has a spot on my lunch rotation and will be staying there for the foreseeable future. This version of tuna salad is light, crunchy, and so addictive that you’ll be running to add it to your lunch rotation too in no time.
Ingredients:
1/4 cup finely diced red or green onion
1/4 cup finely diced jalapenos
1 3 oz can tuna packed in olive oil, drained
1/4 cup finely diced cucumber
1/4 cup finely diced radish
1/2 cup chopped fresh spinach
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tbsp yellow mustard
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tbsp of any fresh herb, eg. parsley, coriander, dill (or substitute for 1 tsp of a dried herb)
1 tsp freshly cracked black pepper
Optional:
Salt to taste
Method:
- Mix your diced red or green onion, cucumber, radish & jalapeno. Chop the spinach to your desired size, and finely chop your fresh herb of choice. If you would like to add salt, add it to the veggies now and mix.
- Add your drained tuna to a small bowl (it’s fine to leave a bit of oil in your tuna).
- Add your chopped onion, jalapeno, cucumber, radish, spinach and herbs of choice and thoroughly mix until evenly distributed.
- Add your mayonnaise, mustard, herbs and seasoning and mix again until homogenous.
- Taste for seasoning and add more of any ingredient if desired.
- Enjoy with crackers, on a salad, in a sandwich or use to make my Tuna Pasta Salad.
Notes:
- This recipe is extremely customizable, so feel free to add, remove, or substitute ingredients as you like!
- I tend to make my tuna salad more on the saucier side when using it for sandwiches or to use in a pasta salad, just because the bread/pasta will soak up some of that sauce and you don’t want them getting too dry.
- I don’t add any salt to my tuna salad as I find the tuna itself gives the dish enough of a salty flavor on its own.
- If you prefer to use water packed tuna, make sure it’s thoroughly drained before adding your mix-ins. Any residual water left in the tuna mixture will not absorb the same way oil does, and will leave your mixture too loose and watery.
- If you find jalapenos too spicy, cut out the white inner parts, called the pith (that’s where most of the spice is) before dicing. The more of the pith you remove, the less spicy the pepper – it will end up tasting like a less sweet bell pepper.
Enjoy!
xx,
girlwhocooks
