When I was growing up, tuna salad sandwiches were some of my favorites. My mom mixed up a delicious concoction to serve on wheat, rye or pita breads, usually topped with alfalfa sprouts.
Yes, I was mocked ridiculously in the lunch room, but I didn’t care. I loved it.
However, I’ve found that some do wrong by tuna salad. So, so wrong.
My husband was scarred for life by his aunt blending tuna salad into a paste. It took awhile for me to convince him that it was good and that mayonnaise was not the enemy.
I realize that in some parts of the country it is common to add sweet pickles or hard cooked eggs, but you won’t find those in my tuna salad. No, no. I make it like my mama used to make — with celery seed and dill weed — and altogether savory. No sweet.
Solid white tuna is essential. While chunk light tuna is generally the least expensive of the canned varieties, it doesn’t have the right texture. And, honestly, I’ve found that even solid white has become less solid over the years. It used to be an entire piece of tuna in a can, but not any longer.
In order to stretch our dollar a little bit, I cheat and use two cans solid white and one can chunk. It’s a happy medium.
Serve the tuna mixture on a bed of lettuce or in lettuce wraps for a low-carb/whole 30 option.
Tuna Salad with Celery Seed and Dill Weed
Ingredients
- 2 5-ounce cans albacore tuna drained
- 1/2 lemon juiced
- 1/4 tsp celery seed optional
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp dried dill
- 1/2 tsp dry parsley flakes
- 1/8 tsp black pepper
- pinch ground cayenne pepper
- 2 to 3 tbsp mayonnaise
- 2 green onion chopped
- 1/2 rib celery chopped (about 2 tablespoons)
- 8 slices sandwich bread or rolls or lettuce leaves
Instructions
- In a medium sized mixing bowl, place the tuna. Do not break up too finely, just enough to have small chunks. You want to mix this as little and as lightly as possible.
- Squeeze the lemon juice over the fish.
- Add the celery seed, salt, dill weed, parsley, pepper and cayenne. Add mayonnaise, tossing lightly, until enough mayo has been incorporated to bind the ingredients. Fold in the onion and celery.
- Serve as a sandwich filling or in lettuce wraps.
Notes
Nutritional values are approximate and based on 1/6 the recipe.
shelley
when i make tuna salad now i use all the above ingredients, only use half and half mayo and thousand island dressing. also, green onions chopped very fine and dill seed. with chopped sweet pickles or dill pickles. either work. also, celery finely chopped or celery seed, whichever i have at the moment. i think the thousand island brings out the flavor.
Deb
My husband would go to his best friends house and his mom made tuna salad with 1/2 mayo and 1/2 mirace whip and celery salt. He also likes celery chopped too. We differ on the pickle part. I like dill and he likes sweet so we spead pickle relish on when we make our sandwich.
Jessica Fisher
What a great compromise!
Jami
This looks great. How many servings is this?
Jessica Fisher
It’s going to vary depending on how much tuna salad you like in your sandwiches. I can usually get 6 to 8 sandwiches out of this.
Stephany Stanley
Ok. I’m late to the party as usual, but here goes…
4 cans tuna drained
Chopped kosher dill pickle about 4 halves
4 or 5 chopped boiled eggs
1 stalk of celery diced fine, carrot if I don’t have celery
1/4 or less finely diced onion
1 handful chopped pecans
Cavenders greek seasoning to taste
3 or 4 tbsp mayo
3 out of 4 kids love it & my husband is peaky & he loves it too.
Jessica Fisher
Never too late! Sounds really interesting!
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Jesse
I can help! 😀 Get your solid white albacore at costco! It is very solid 😀 and comes in a larger can. Because I have a family of three I get the cans that are slightly larger than the grocery, but they also have larger cans that I’m betting would feed your family just fine. 🙂 and I’m a slightly sweet tuna sal girl. My husband is all savory however. So I compromise I add half sweet relish and half dill relish and we get on fine.
Jesse
@Jesse, Oh and since I’m allergic to egg whites I use mushrooms cut in the same way my mom started doing it that way for me when I was little and sad because I was different lol.
Dee
Right now we are making simple tuna fish with mayo and dill. It’s great with cheese for tuna melts or to add to a salad.
I do like to add relish or just diced pickles with mayo to tuna.
Carrots, celery, sprouts are fun and tasty to add. Tuna salad is something you can change up so it is never dull
Lorrie
I will certainly try this. Back in Washington, with 6 people in the family, I could buy the cheap tuna on sale for 4 for $1, so I would buy that. I’m lucky if I can find the cheap stuff on sale for 75 cents a can in southern CA. I rarely buy it, but since buying a pressure canner, I’ve been thinking of canning my own tuna. I’m looking for better quality if I have to pay so much anyway. Crazy that I live in a town that was the major source of harvesting and canning tuna. It’s all gone now. 🙁
Jessica
Sounds like you live in San Diego! Do you keep up with CVS? They often have sales on canned tuna.
Esther Robb
I often add curry powder and peas to my tuna salad…it just seems so lacking in color and interest without those little green gems in there.
SheilaB
I agree, no sweet. But when I was little my mom put in very finly chopped celery instead of seed. The dill sounds delish! My only probelm now is that my husband wants it with sweet relish. And so does my son. And when we do have it we steer totally clear of albacore because it has a much higher mercury content (larger tuna fish).
Jessica
@SheilaB, I thought it was all tuna in general that you had to eat in moderation.
Kathy
I want to add a caution about albacore tuna: the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that pregnant and nursing mothers, as well as children, limit the consumption of albacore because it contains much more mercury than the chunk light or “pink” tuna . We LOVE the albacore, but I no longer buy it because of the academy’s warning.
Jessica
@Kathy, good point. We limit it and eat it very rarely. But, it good to keep in the loop. Thanks!
Stacy
@Kathy, I was going to mention this, but didn’t want to be a spoil sport. Since it’s already mentioned though…I’ve switched entirely to chunk light just so I don’t have to be concerned about the mercury. It’s not as good, but it’s OK. I also used canned salmon. Canned chicken is also quite nice, or just shreded chicken to make chicken salad, which is what I prefer over tuna (I do like tuna though). I never thought of adding all those herbs. I’ll try it sometime.
Stacy
“shredded,” that is…
Kathy
@Stacy, Stacy: I was a newspaper medical writer for many years; I so don’t worry about being a spoilsport 🙂
I like albacore tuna better also, but it’s not worth the health risks , especially when I can make a pretty good chunk light tuna salad and we are salmon crazy anyway!
Jessica
@Stacy, I don’t think I ever heard that chunk light had less mercury. That’s a new one for me.
Stacy
@Jessica, There are lots of articles on it, but here’s one: http://www.ewg.org/news/limits-urged-eating-tuna . The warnings are mainly for pregnant and nursing women, children, and women who may become pregnant. That said, mercury isn’t good for anyone, so I figure less is better. Certain seafoods are very high. Albacore is high because they’re bigger fish and have had more time to absorb mercury. Chunk light is made from smaller fish who haven’t.
Jessica
Oh, I knew there was a limit on tuna; I just didn’t realize they were differenciating between albacore and other tunas. I think they started issuing the warnings four kids ago. 😉
Jesse
@Kathy, It makes me so sad, The chunk tuna looks and tastes (to me) like it had a run in with a propeller. I will eat albacore but wont feed it to my daughter. chicken salad for her little tummy!
Kathy
@Jesse, Jesse, I feel your pain. I LOVE the albacore, but just never buy it. I would eat it out, though.
AllieZirkle
I’m all about celery salt & curry powder in mine. Yum.