ITALIAN TUNA SALAD

Italian Tuna Salad

For Sandwiches or Salads

Often recipes are born out of necessity

This Italian tuna salad recipe is a nice change from tuna salad made with mayonnaise. Ricky came up with this version of tuna salad because his wife Cheryl isn’t crazy about mayonnaise. As a substitute he turned to an old favorite. Olive oil. To satisfy his taste for mayo, he slathers it onto the bread of his sandwich. That’s just enough for him to get that rich mayonnaise taste, while still getting the benefits of less saturated fat and empty calories.

I know where Cheryl is coming from. I like mayonnaise, but must admit that when it’s mixed into salads like tuna salad or potato salad, it can be heavy and overpowering. My alternative is to thin the mayonnaise with some olive oil, but I like this salad just the way it is.

It’s tasty delicious and better for you

Speaking of empty calories and less healthy fats, take a look at the nutritional values on this recipe. It’s really impressive what this simple substitution for mayo makes in nutritional values. Chopped tomato mixed right into the salad as an ingredient helps with the nutritional stats too.

This recipe is really worth trying for so many reasons.

There’s a reason for squeezin‘

In this recipe, we squeeze the tuna to get out as much liquid as possible. This is an important step. The tuna is going to be dry enough to soak up the olive oil and the juices rendered by the chopped tomato. Without squeezing, the salad would be wet and sloppy instead of fresh and light.

His vs Hers

It’s an obvious conclusion to think that I enjoy Ricky’s dinners. But we have differences in our food choices.

He enjoys all kinds of vegetables and uses them to make a full meal. I am pretty selective and would never choose a vegetable over meat or pasta as a main course.

His regular diet includes bread. Italian, French and sliced white are his preference. I don’t eat much bread, and when I do I like whole grain, and if it has seeds all the better.

He spoons his tuna salad onto his favorite bread (with a smear of mayo on the roll) and makes a sandwich. I use Ricky’s Italian tuna salad on a bed of greens. It’s a simple, fresh cold salad with plenty of protein! I add a splash of my favorite dressing or olive oil to the greens before I put the tuna on. It is a perfect summer meal.

Any way you serve it, this tuna salad offers a more health conscious option to a usual tuna salad and is quick, easy, economical and delicious.

Here’s what YOU WILL NEED:

About the ingredients

Tuna

Have you ever looked at a can of tuna fish before you buy it to see what it has been packed in? Usually a grocery store will carry tuna packed in oil, and tuna packed in water. This recipe calls for tuna packed in water, rather than oil, even though you will be using olive oil in the recipe. Why? Flavor. When the prepared fish is packed in oil, and subsequently “sits” in it, the consistency and flavor are effected. Not necessarily in a bad way, but if you want to get as close to the taste of tuna as you can, buy it packed in water. We are using solid white albacore tuna. Anything else is going to taste more “fishy”. Some may prefer the stronger flavor, but in this recipe, we prefer the milder, lighter and fresher choice of white albacore.

Olive oil

We like the taste of olive oil and use it for most everything we cook. It is considered to be one of the healthier choices. Olive oil is low in saturated fat, but has a good amount of healthier polyunsaturated fat. It is a plant based oil, squeezed out of olives.

What’s the deal with virgin oil?

Do you know what it means when an olive oil is marked “extra virgin”? It means the oil has come from the first press of the fresh olive. It’s the most flavorful “press”. After the first press, the olives are pressed again to extract more oil. That oil will be marked as olive oil. We use extra virgin. When you are buying large bottles of it like we do, virgin oil is not that much more expensive.

Not all virgin oil is the same

In this recipe, olive oil is one of the primary flavors so quality rather than quantity is something to keep in mind. I have my cooking olive oil and some specialty olive oil for dishes such as this. Another classic salad recipe featuring olive oil is CAPRESE SALAD.

There is a huge variety of specialty olive oils out there. I have been to a store that has a tasting gallery offering an unbelievable variety of olive oil from all over the world. Like wines, where the olive is grown makes a big difference in how it tastes. It’s where I get my olive oil for special dishes like this one. They also have flavored olive oils and flavored vinegars. They have a website: fioreoliveoils.com with lots more information about olive oil if you are interested. We don’t have any affiliation. I’m just a customer. They have quality goods and it’s a fun place to visit if you get the chance.

Onion

We are using red onion. It is a little milder flavor than a yellow onion. But you can use any onion you like or what you have on hand. Sweet onions are great in this. Scallions are great for this recipe also. It’s all up to you. We have an ingredient tidbit showing various onion choices About Onions.

Ciabatta rolls

A ciabatta roll is a good choice for this sandwich because it is solid. If you are going to substitute with another bread, you should choose one that’s sturdy and will hold up. This tuna salad is moist; you don’t want to end up with soggy bread. On the other hand, the ciabatta rolls will soak in any excess oil without getting soggy and it all works to make a nice moist sandwich.

This is WHAT TO DO:

Squeeze the water out of the tuna

Typically when making a canned tuna dish of any kind, you drain the liquid from the can. Ricky takes it one step further. He empties the contents of the can into a fine meshed strainer. Then he squeezes all the water out with his hands. This technique was new to me and is very effective in this recipe. With all of the water squeezed out of the tuna it soaks up the juices from the fresh chopped tomatoes and the olive oil while the is resting. The end result is not waterlogged or oily.

Prepare the vegetables

I have found that most red onions in the stores I shop at are pretty big. I can’t always find a small one. That’s okay with me because I will only cut up as much as I want in my salad and put the rest in a sandwich bag and store it in my deli meat drawer in the refrigerator. There’s always something I can use them in or on. Chopped red onions are great on hot dogs!

There is no special size to cut the vegetables, cut them the way you like them. We cut the tomato into bite sized pieces and the onions into pieces about 1/4 inch. If you want the flavor of the onion without biting into pieces of it, chop it up small or you can even mince it. Mincing means cutting up into very small pieces. If you buy jarred garlic, you will find that some jars will be marked chopped garlic and some will be marked minced. That’s a good way to see how small a cut mincing is. As far as how much onion to add, decide for yourself.

Mix it all together

Let it rest in the refrigerator

Cover the bowl and put the salad in the refrigerator for one hour. If you skip this step, you will not be getting the full flavor of the salad. While the salad rests the dry tuna will soak up all the rendered juices of the chopped tomato and the olive oil. The flavor of onion melds in with the other flavors so every mouthful of the salad has the same delicious goodness.

Serve

Just look at the dinner you can have with almost no preparation time and no cooking. It’s light and refreshing, has protein and vegetables, and is a lot healthier than your typical tuna salad. Best of all, it’s delicious.