My Perfect Tuna Salad recipe is loaded with crunchy extras like celery, pickles, and nuts. It’s great to eat with crackers, on bread, or stuffed in an avocado! It’s the best tuna salad recipe ever!
I have loved tuna salad since I was as young as I can remember. Back then, it was simply tuna and mayo and nothing else. I didn’t want to crunch on ANYTHING. But of course, as I got older, I started liking a little crunch in my food…texture and interest.
I started experimenting with my tuna salad and chicken salad recipes many years ago and truly feel like the base of tuna and mayo is the perfect vehicle for add-ins. Whether it be spices and seasonings, fruit, nuts, or chopped veggies, it’s an easy way to get creative with flavors.
This Perfect Tuna Salad recipe is my simple twist on simple tuna salad, while still being completely classic! The extra crunch of the salty nuts, and the tang of the dill pickles and spicy mustard is my absolute favorite.
This is an Easy Tuna Salad Recipe that you will LOVE!
What is great about tuna salad is it’s an amazing, affordable, and quick solution to not only lunch in the summer when the kids are home, but even as a fast dinner option!
Get creative with your tuna salad recipe
This Tuna Salad recipe is super versatile. Like I said you can serve it for lunch or dinner, but you can also get creative with how you serve it…on bread, crackers, stuffed in an avocado, in a pita, tortilla, lettuce wrap…the list goes on and on…
What Can You Add Into Tuna Salad?
Adding things into your tuna salad can really make it delicious. Here are some ideas of how I like to jazz up my tuna salad:
- I love adding nuts into my tuna salad recipe. My husband prefers almonds, while I love cashews.
- I also ALWAYS have to add chopped pickles. If you don’t have pickles to chop up, we also love to add in relish as well.
- A drizzle of a little balsamic vinaigrette on top for an even more delicious salad, or even a balsamic glaze!
- Of course onions and celery are classic tuna salad additions.
- If you like spice, you can add some crushed red pepper, or even some wasabi and a splash of soy sauce!
I honestly feel that like this is the best tuna salad recipe, and when you adapt it and make it your own, everyone wins!
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Perfect Tuna Salad
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 1–2 servings 1x
- Category: Lunch
- Method: Bowl
- Cuisine: American
Description
My Perfect Tuna Salad is loaded with crunchy extras like celery, pickles, and nuts. It’s great to eat with crackers, on bread, or stuffed in an avocado!
Ingredients
- 2 (5 ounce) cans tuna, drained well
- 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 2 teaspoons spicy brown mustard
- 1/3 cup small diced celery
- 1/4 cup diced dill pickles
- 2 tablespoons chopped almonds (or cashews)
- 2 tablespoons chopped chives
- juice of half a lemon
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Mix all ingredients in a medium bowl until combined.
- Serve immediately or chill airtight for up to 3 days.
Notes
Serve with crackers, on bread with avocado, lettuce and tomato, on a lettuce wrap, or a tortilla.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Scoop
- Calories: 334
- Sugar: 5.9 g
- Sodium: 292.2 mg
- Fat: 26 g
- Carbohydrates: 20.9 g
- Protein: 8.4 g
- Cholesterol: 19.8 mg
Keywords: best tuna salad recipe, tuna
Simple to put together, and Super Tasty! Really glad i found your website! Thanks
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Shelly, in your description you mention carrots, but they are not included in your ingredients?
Looks like that was a typo! Meant to say celery. Although diced carrots could be great too!
Mm…I would like this. Not sure about the nuts in there ..lol..I have never heard of spicy “brown” mustard. Is it like a Dijon mustard? I always put a squirt of yellow mustard in my tuna, mayo, onions. Sometimes curry powder and dried cranberries. The curry tastes really good as well. Thanks for your version. I will give it a try!
We love tuna salad too; thanks for your version! However,while their mustard is outstanding, use it in many things, their mayo has an off taste that I just don’t care for, same base is used in their special sauce! Sorry!
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You know what I love in my tuna salad, bacon!! I sometimes used raw onions sometimes cooked, caramelized peppers, yummy
such a great idea!!