Best tuna fish salad

Doc

Administrator
Staff member
Gold Site Supporter
Great follow up Tom. Rep points for you. Very interesting. Thanks for taking us along for the ride in how you figured this out. :thumb: :D
 

Lefty

Yank
I agree with Doc. Great post. I may have to do the same with potato salad. I have never found a recipe that came close to one the a lady at my church used to make when I was growing up. I have not cared for it since. I think you have given me some inspiration!!!
 

PanchoHambre

New member
Interesting summery gramps...

I make two types the traditional mayo...

I like to add dill... or if I dont have it another fresh herb...

not big on the tomato

celery crunch a must

never ever hardboiled egg... those turn it into a fear factor item for me

I also like to make an oil and vinegar tuna salad with olives or capers or artichoke or something like that and maybe cherry tomatoes.

mostly I use that method for the non sandwich type
 

lilbopeep

🌹🐰 Still trying to get it right.
Site Supporter
As this little tuna salad experimentation adventure of mine comes to an end, I must say that I have learned a lot. While I never did quite duplicate the tuna salad I set out to duplicate, I came awfully darn close with your help and with the additional (and unexpected) help of a former professional chef acquaintance of ours. The fact is that I believe I've come up with some even better flavors than the one I originally set out to duplicate. Either that or my tastes in tuna salad have begun to change back in some ways to a more traditional (stronger tasting, slightly less sweet) product.

Here is a brief summary of what I learned:

Tuna - The very best tuna (best overall flavor, color and prepared texture) for tuna salad turned out to be a mix of solid white albacore in water and chunk light tuna in water. This "mix" idea was suggested to me by the former pro chef. It didn't matter whether it was canned or pouched, but the canned stuff had to be pressed and drained far better than I had been doing... and then "washed" and re-pressed/re-drained. He told me this same technique should always be applied to packed-in-oil tuna as well.

Mayonnaise - As much as I love and live for my Miracle Whip, the fact is that I wasted a lot of time seeking the flavor I wanted by incorrectly assuming that the target recipe had to have used Miracle Whip (or similar). Turns out I was dead wrong. I came closest to the target recipe with plain old Hellman's Mayonnaise. It doesn't mean I am giving up on Miracle Whip in tuna salad... hardly!!!... but the target recipe clearly did not use it.

Fresh Minced Celery - A critical ingredient for that fresh crunch, look and texture... but not all that critical to flavor if one plans to use sweet relish for a more tart flavor anyway.

Lemon Juice - One of the key critical ingredients that I had long overlooked. This made a huge difference once it was pointed out to me.

Sweet Relish - Cains in my case - Absolutely critical to achieving the tart, sweet flavor I was seeking.

Minced Red Onion - An excellent addition, but not in the target recipe.

Hard Boiled Egg - Not in the target recipe and did nothing for me.

Sweet Mustard - Definitely one of the key missing ingredients. Congratulations and thanks to the folks who identified mustard as one of the key ingredients in the target recipe. The only difficulty I had was finding the correct mustard. With the pro chef's help, and absent the skill to make my own blend, I ended up with Raye's Sweet & Spicy Mustard (the best match I could find locally). Interestingly, Cain's Hot Dog Relish is sweet and already contains mustard. It was a pretty darn good substitute for using separate sweet relish and sweet mustard.

Ketchup/Cocktail Sauce/Chili Sauce? - We are still firmly convinced that ketchup (or something very similar) was a small, subtle part of the target recipe... but the more we experimented with it, the less we thought it absolutely necessary. It can easily overpower.

Refrig Breathing Time - Absolutely critical... and so confirmed by our pro chef acquaintance. Even an hour or two makes a big difference.

Store-Bought Tuna Salad - I will never buy it again as long as I live. I came upon some of the worst tasting tuna salad ever trying different store deli offerings.

Eaten By Itself vs. Sandwiches - I found that how I eat my tuna salad greatly affects how I prefer it to taste and how I will now make it. I also found that my habit of always eating my tuna sandwiches with a big slice of tomato is not always the best idea. If the tuna salad already has plenty of flavor, lettuce alone can make for a better tasting (and far less messy!) sandwich. :wink:

Those are my conclusions. One last time - Thanks to all who helped me! :chef:

Take care,
Tom
i ONLY put lettuse on my tuna sammies also. sometimes i like to do it the way they did in school lunches (yup way back when the school lunches were fantastic, cooked in house fresh and edible!!), they would butter thinly italian bread to go along with the lunches. some of the loaves were used for tuna sammies always available as a alternate cold lunch. they would put the tuna salad on and lettuce only. i loved those sammies!! sometimes when in the mood i will give my tuna sammie on a roll (bread gets soggy so i only do this with a roll or itaian bread sammie)a splash of italian dressing.
 

joec

New member
Gold Site Supporter
I actually like tuna salad best once done is to spread in on saltine or Ritz crackers. I can do a tuna salad sandwich but not often.
 
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