How to Cook With Tuna

Canned tuna recipes offer versatile and affordable meal options beyond the basic tuna salad. This pantry staple, with its oceanic saltiness and subtle fish flavor, is a fantastic ingredient for numerous dishes, boasting both juiciness and a pleasingly delicate texture. Budget-friendly and nutritious, canned tuna can be elevated into a variety of quick and flavorful culinary creations. Here are several ways to enhance canned tuna and create a collection of simple, delicious meals.

1. Enhance with the Acidity of Tomatoes

Tuna possesses a rich, oily, and saline profile. Tomatoes, in contrast, offer sweetness and acidity, creating a vibrant counterpoint. Their sweet and tangy juices can revitalize canned tuna whether incorporated raw or cooked. Dice a ripe tomato for a tuna salad, or simmer them down into a flavorful sauce.

Recipe Ideas: Tomato and Tuna Combinations

• Incorporate chunks of tuna and diced tomatoes into guacamole for a zesty tostada. | Spicy Tuna and Avocado Tostadas

  

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• Boost store-bought marinara sauce with impactful elements like warm spices, cilantro, and tuna for a rapid simmer resulting in a robust flavor. | Baasto iyo Suugo Tuuna (Pasta and Spiced Tuna Sauce)

• For a lighter pasta sauce featuring tuna, allow the juices from cherry tomatoes to meld with olive oil, vinegar, shallot, garlic, and oregano. | Pasta Salad With Marinated Tomatoes and Tuna

2. Add Crunch with Potato Chips

Potato chips are not just enjoyable on their own; they are also essential when paired with tuna. The delicate texture of tuna benefits from a contrasting element to prevent it from being monotonous. Potato chips inject a delightful crispness, elevating tuna sandwiches, casseroles, and more from ordinary to timeless.

Recipe Ideas: Incorporating Potato Chips with Tuna

• Top your tuna salad sandwiches with a generous amount of potato chips. The choice of chip – kettle-cooked, salt and vinegar, or barbecue – is a matter of personal preference and significantly impacts the flavor profile. | Tuna Salad Sandwiches

• Potato chips can also resolve the common issue of tuna salad spilling out of sandwiches. Fold crushed chips directly into the tuna salad to enhance its structure. | Tuna Crunch Sandwiches

• When a craving for tuna noodle casserole arises, enhance it with a homemade sauce, vegetables, and capers. However, for the topping, potato chips remain the ultimate upgrade. | Tuna Noodle Casserole

3. Amplify Flavor with Briny Ingredients

Briny components such as capers, olives, pickles, and kimchi act as flavor enhancers for tuna, accentuating its inherent saltiness. Together, they achieve harmonious notes of tang and salt. If your tuna dish tastes bland or uninspired, consider condiments from your refrigerator to add zest.

Recipe Ideas: Brine-Infused Tuna Dishes

• Introduce a savory depth to fresh pasta with herbs and lemon by heating scallions, garlic, capers, and anchovies in olive oil. | Pasta With Tuna, Capers and Scallions

• Pasta puttanesca is a robust sauce featuring rich tomatoes, red pepper flakes, olives, capers, and anchovies. Incorporating tuna, though unconventional, amplifies the briny notes and adds substance and protein. | Tuna Puttanesca

• To guarantee a vibrant flavor in every bite, Melissa Clark integrates anchovies into the dressing for her niçoise salad instead of merely draping them on top. | Niçoise Salad With Basil and Anchovy-Lemon Vinaigrette

• Combine kimchi and tuna for a lively and nutritious salad, ideal with nori or starchy accompaniments like rice, boiled potatoes, noodles, or potato chips. | Kimchi Tuna Salad

4. Incorporate Sliced Raw Onion for Zest

Finely diced raw onion elevates tuna salad, delivering bursts of juicy crunch and a spicy edge within the creamy base. However, increasing the surface area enhances the effect. By slicing the onion into long, thin strips, you achieve a more pronounced flavor impact.

Recipe Ideas: Tuna with Raw Onion

• Pickle red onions for an attractive pink garnish. As an added advantage, their sweet, salty, and sour brine can be repurposed in salad dressings. | Scarlett’s Tuna Salad

• Raw onion provides essential texture to a simple salad of tuna, tomatoes, onion, vinegar, and oil. | Tuna and Tomato Salad

• Balance a sheet pan meal of roasted potatoes, canned tuna, and brown butter anchovy sauce, which can be quite rich, by generously topping it with onions and herbs. | Roasted Potatoes With Anchovies and Tuna

5. Achieve Creaminess with White Beans

White beans complement more assertive flavors in a dish. They contribute creamy elements to salads or serve as a structural base when mashed into patties for frying and casseroles.

Recipe Ideas: Tuna and White Bean Dishes

• Combine mashed beans, tuna, milk, and aromatics for a comforting casserole. Don’t forget to finish it with potato chips (and cheese, and butter). | One-Pan Tuna-White Bean Casserole

• Why choose between three-bean salad and salad niçoise, two summer classics, when you can merge them for a substantial and satisfying meal? | Summer Vegetable Niçoise Salad

• White beans impart a smooth texture and act as a binding agent in savory tuna cakes. | Crispy Tuna Cakes

6. Enhance with Toasted Sesame Oil

Toasted sesame oil, extracted from slowly roasted sesame seeds, adds a nutty, silky, and savory flavor in minimal quantities. In the presence of sesame oil, tuna’s taste profile becomes deeper and more pronounced.

Recipe Ideas: Tuna with Sesame Oil Infusion

• Dress tuna and firm udon noodles with a sesame-soy dressing for an Asian-inspired dish. | Japanese-Style Tuna Noodle Salad

• For a mayonnaise-based tuna salad, incorporate zesty pickled peppers and a subtle hint of sesame oil. | Pepperoncini Tuna Salad

• Alternatively, for a comforting option, combine tuna, mayonnaise, sesame oil, and soy sauce. | Tuna Mayo Rice Bowl

7. Add Juiciness with Cucumber Slices

Is a tuna sandwich truly complete without a pickle spear? Pickles offer a burst of saltiness (as mentioned earlier), but they are fundamentally cucumbers, known for their juiciness, crispness, and subtle sweetness — qualities that contrast tuna’s profile. This contrast is why they complement each other effectively, demonstrating the principle of opposites attracting.

Recipe Ideas: Tuna and Cucumber Pairings

• Spicy tuna sushi rolls traditionally include sliced cucumbers for freshness. A pantry-friendly, homemade version should also incorporate this refreshing element. | Spicy Tuna Salad With Crispy Rice

• Blend tuna into tzatziki. The yogurt and cucumber in this Greek sauce parallel the mayonnaise and pickles found in classic deli-style tuna salad. | Tzatziki Tuna Salad

• Pan Bagnat is a generously filled sandwich incorporating refreshing yet rich ingredients, pressed together to allow flavors to meld. Cucumber is a welcome addition. | Pan Bagnat