Classic Tuna Salad Sandwich
- Total Time
- 5 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 2(6-ounce) cans solid, waterpacked tuna
- ½cup mayonnaise, preferably homemade
- ½cup finely diced celery
- 3tablespoons finely diced red onion
- 3tablespoons finely minced red bell pepper
- 2tablespoons drained capers
- 2teaspoons lemon juice
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- Sliced sandwich bread of choice
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Preparation
- Step 1
In a medium bowl, combine the tuna, mayonnaise, celery, onion, bell pepper, capers and lemon juice. Mix with a fork until thoroughly combined. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve on the sandwich bread of your choice.
Private Notes
Comments
For those financially strapped people in the world I find that if you rinse the tuna with cold water in a fine mesh strainer takes away most of the salt in the tuna. Also a trick that I learned while working at a deli is to grab the tuna by the handful and squeeze out the water. This makes the tuna dryer which will allow the flavors in the recipe like the lemon juice and mayo soak into the tuna without making it soggy.
I completely agree. Everyone has a tuna salad recipe. This one belongs to Craig Claiborne, who certainly knew his stuff. Let's save all the ad-libbing and over-tweaking of a classic recipe for another forum. Let's talk about THIS recipe.
i'm ok with the Claiborne contents, except:
Canned tuna is loaded with salt. Therefore, kill the capers and don't add salt.
Perfect tuna salad requires solid light tuna in olive oil, not drained.
grated carrot adds sweetness. kalamata olives add to a Mediterranean flavor. scallions are milder that red onion. finally adding a tablespoon of hummus, and a teaspoon of Dijon mustard takes the whole project from good tuna salad to heavenly.
Hey Sam, for something different and untraditional try adding a bit of Wasabi to your mayo before mixing it with the tuna and celery. It lends that great flavor without so much of the flair up to the nose! I soak my red onions in water for about 10 minutes to mellow their flavor then add them with a few grinds of pepper. Delish!
Appreciate the rinsing and fistful squeezing tips. I'm on a salt-restricted diet, and found that squeezing out the water helped keep the filling together later. I like the added crunch and vitamins from the red pepper in this recipe. I didn't have capers on hand so I used finely chopped dill pickle and it was delicious and extra crunchy, but I'll definitely try it with rinsed capers next time. I try to stick to recipes as written but I think it's okay to adjust for health, personal taste, etc.
Just ok. I prefer my curry tuna salad.
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