When it comes to dishes easily crafted from the pantry, it’s hard to beat tuna salad. Using the trusty pairing of canned tuna, mayonnaise, and aromatics, a delicious creation emerges. Plus, it’s an easy canvas for experimentation: Just one simple swap can make your tuna salad taste like heaven.
Perhaps you even obtained some fresh tuna and wondered — can I turn it into tuna salad? As with many culinary queries, the answer’s yes, as long as you make the proper adjustments. There’s not much point in cooking fresh tuna into a dry consistency akin to what’s in a can. But if you prepare it with an inventive technique, you can create a delicious tuna salad with a twist.
Craft the mayo-based dressing of your choosing and flake in the cooked tuna to combine. But be mindful to showcase more of the natural tuna flavor. In this way, the salad offers a fresh take on tuna salad and a convenient way of using up leftovers.
Grill or poach fresh tuna for tuna salad
Tuna steak’s thickness enables the easiest preparation, making it the best cut for the job. Firm and meaty specimens like albacore, bigeye, and bluefin are the optimal species for the job. Of course, the tastiest way to make a tuna steak is on a smoking-hot grill, leaving the interior rare. But you can also make tuna salad from the cuts that aren’t quite right for a steak. Just cut them into uniform sizes and poach. If you’re making tuna especially for the salad, just know you must let the tuna cool before breaking it into small pieces and mixing it with a mayo-based dressing.
One of the benefits of the salad is that the tuna’s appearance is less critical. You can always imbue color by way of ingredients like herbs, capers, red onion, and celery. Or you can give tuna salad more character with a few sprinkles of everything bagel seasoning.
For the dressing, add the brightness you crave and balance the richness with citrus, vinegar, or mustard. You can also make your dressing more mayo-heavy to adjust for dryness, making this a fantastic method for rescuing overcooked tuna.