The Best Tuna Salad

By Patlynn

For our The Best Tuna Salad recipe, tasters preferred canned solid white tuna for its pleasant mild flavor and consistently firm flesh. We found that canned tuna is often cooked twice before shipping to eliminate bacteria, a process that dries it out. To rejuvenate the fish, we pressed it dry and marinated it in seasoned oil, which allowed the flavors to soak into the tuna.

Before marinating the tuna, we softened the onions by microwaving them in the oil. This tamed the onions and also infused the oil with additional flavor.

Ingredients

• Our favorite canned tuna is Chicken of the Sea White Albacore Tuna in Water; avoid chunk light tuna. The test kitchen recommends Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise.
• 3 (5-ounce) cans solid white albacore tuna packed in water (see note)
• 1/4 cup minced onion
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons mayonnaise (see note)
• 1 celery rib, chopped fine

Preparation

Step 1

1. MARINATE TUNA Place tuna in fine-mesh strainer and press dry with paper towels. Transfer to medium bowl and mash with fork until finely flaked. Microwave onion and oil in small bowl until onion begins to soften, about 2 minutes. Cool slightly, about 5 minutes. Combine onion mixture, lemon juice, ½ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, and sugar with tuna and let sit 10 minutes.


2. FINISH SALAD Stir mayonnaise and celery into tuna mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Serve. (Salad can be refrigerated in airtight container for 1 day.)



Making a Good Thing Better


Three steps can turn ordinary tuna salad into a standout.


1. DRY We pat the tuna dry to prevent a watery tuna salad.



2. ZAP We briefly microwave olive oil with minced onion to flavor the oil and soften the onion.



3. MARINATE Before we stir in the mayonnaise, we marinate the tuna to season it.