AMAZING FRESH Tuna Salad Recipe

Leave the can on the shelf because this fresh tuna salad is loaded with grilled ahi and vegetables in this mouthwatering recipe.

Tuna salad is known as a “bound salad” and combines roughly chopped tuna fish with vegetables and a mayonnaise dressing while being served cooled. During the late 1800s, it was common practice that no scraps would ever go to waste. Any leftover fish would be simply tossed with vegetables and mayonnaise and then served on lettuce for lunch.

While tuna hadn’t become popularized yet at this point, the gesture or technique had already been in place. So, when canned tuna showed up in the early 1900s the tuna salad sandwich became a quick staple at lunch tables across America.

Ingredients for this recipe:

• two 10 ounce fresh tuna fillets
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 peeled and small diced red onion
• 3 small, diced stalks of celery
• 2 small, diced pickles
• 2 tablespoons roughly minced capers
• 1 finely minced garlic clove
• 4 small-diced hard-boiled eggs
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• salt and pepper to taste

Serves 6

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Procedures:

1. Preheat the grill to high heat, 450° to 550°.
2. Coat the tuna in olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
3. Add the tuna to the grill and cook for about 7-8 minutes per side or until dark grill marks have formed and the tuna is cooked throughout, no pink. Place the tuna on a plate and chill in the refrigerator until completely cooled.
4. In the meantime, prep all the vegetables and add them to a large bowl along with the eggs, mayonnaise, mustard, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.
5. When the tuna is done cooling roughly mince it until it is in bite-size pieces and then add it to the bowl with the vegetable mixture.
6. Mix until everything is well mixed in and serve.

Chef Notes:

Make-Ahead – You can make this up to 1 day ahead of time.

How to Store – Cover and chill for up to 3 days. This will not freeze well.

If you plan on serving this the next day, drain off any excess liquid and re-season with salt, pepper, and toss with a little more mayonnaise.

You can substitute out the fresh tuna in this recipe with frozen-thawed, or even canned.

Feel free to pan-sear or broil the tuna if you do not have access to a grill.

So obviously just about everybody’s had tuna salad whether you’ve made it at home or gotten it from a sandwich shop chances are you’ve tried it but we are gonna keep that can on the shelf my friends because i’m gonna show you how to make an absolutely delicious fresh grilled

Tuna salad it is gonna blow your mind so of course this is gonna take a little bit more time than simply popping a can because we need to grill up the tuna we’ve got a little bit of prep though to do sound good let’s cook i’m gonna pull some fresh tuna out of

The refrigerator it looks absolutely beautiful nice and purpley red and whenever you hear the term ahi like when people say oh i’ve got some ahi tuna ahi is just hawaiian for yellowfin or big-eyed tuna so when people say ahi tuna they’re really just saying tuna

Tuna just a little fyi yes you can use frozen thawed and if you must you can use canned tuna just drain it what we’re going to do at this point is coat each side up with a little bit of oil you can use olive grapeseed peanut totally up to you

This is absolutely essential to make sure this does not stick to the grill next we want to season both sides with salt and pepper and again when you season be about a foot away from the ingredient so that every bite is perfectly seasoned and absolutely delicious

And once we’ve gotten the last bit of pepper we are next going outside to a preheated hot grill and when it’s hot i mean in between 450 and 550 degrees fahrenheit this is crucial also to ensure that the tuna or any fish for that matter does not stick to the grill grates

It’s gonna take in between seven and eight minutes for this tuna to be completely finished cooking but not dried out we do want it cooked through again we don’t wanna make it really dry it’s no good at that point obviously you might as well just have canned tuna

Finish cooking it the rest of the way and then at this point what we want to do is quickly remove the tuna from the grill just going to put it on a plate or a platter whatever you have and it’s going right into the refrigerator we need to cool it down completely before

We chop it up and add it to our tuna salad and look if you do not want to grill it you can absolutely pan sear it in a pan maybe finish it in the oven or even broil it that’s if you don’t have a grill but it does get off that nice

Smoky flavor and gives it that little bit of extra deliciousness however you’ll still be fine with those other two procedures here’s what we do now we need to small dice a red onion this is about medium size i’m going to use the whole thing i think the onion flavor

In here is really good this onion is being crazy by the way as you just saw remove the outside peeling and then small dice them if you need an example of how to do this in more detail i’ve got a great video on how to prepare an onion several different ways

And because i love vegetables in tuna salad i suggest loading it up starting again with some celery we’re going to small dice them then i’ve got a few pickles i’ve got a fantastic recipe for kosher dill or even bread and butter you can use either bread and butter is going

To make it sweet kosher dill is going to keep it nice and savory that’s what i’m using we want to small dice these as well if you want to substitute out with relish you can be my guest but i’m telling you use homemade pickles oh my

Gosh it’s going to be that much better and now i’ve got some capers you may have seen this in a tuna salad recipe before it just takes it over the top you get a little bit more of that tang that crunch what we want to do is just

Roughly mince these it does not have to be perfect by any stretch we’re going to take these and add it to the bowl with the vegetables and then for a garlic clove you can finely mince it or run it through a press totally up to you

And this is going to be a little bit out there but i love hard-boiled eggs and tuna salad it just makes it that much meatier and heartier it’s so good i’ve got a great hard-boiled egg recipe for you check it out and what i’m gonna do is run it through an egg slicer

And who’s the videographer in this video oh i am whoops yeah i’m completely shielding everything i’m showing you how to do with finely mincing an egg through one of these slicers my bad whoops what you’re looking to do is kind of simply small dice them add them to the bowl again with

Everything else and then your tuna should be just about there and nice and chilled we’re going to pull it out of the refrigerator what we want to do here is roughly chop it so using a chef knife or even a cleaver if you have one just roughly chop it

Back and forth just like this okay take all of that goodness add that to the bowl and now bring that bowl a little bit closer because we have a few more ingredients to add to make sure this is together a tuna salad is also known as a bound

Salad which is anything that uses mayonnaise with vegetables and protein to come together so i’m going to add in some mayonnaise again have a great homemade recipe for mayonnaise it will just take it over the top if you have some left if not here’s the recipe video

And then a little bit of dijon mustard you could use yellow mustard but dijon it’s just better and now for a little bit more tang the juice of one half lemon and then of course we want to season it with salt and fresh cracked black pepper you could

Use a seasoning salt like a lowry’s or an old bay as well now using a rubber spatula combine everything together i’ve totally forgot about this it is optional but i do think it helps hit it with a little tabasco sauce gives it a little bit more heat a

Little bit more flavor in the end and then simply serve it or pop it in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve it up and sometimes the ingredient is the technique when you take a bite of this fresh tuna salad it’s like why would i

Ever buy anything out of the can ever again it’s that much better but making sure you use fresh in season ingredients man it will make all of your homemade food so dang delicious now there are plenty of different ways to plate this up but here’s how i’m gonna do it with a sandwich

Here we go i’ve got a slice of toasted whole wheat sourdough bread got a great recipe for you and then i’m going to use butter leaf lettuce you could use green leaf or red leaf butter leaf is just creamier it’s really good with tuna salad now load up completely

With the tuna you can keep this open face add another slice tomatoes or onions even then i’m gonna finish with some micro greens or if you have some alfalfa sprouts they are absolutely fantastic on tuna salad or you can even put it in a half pitted avocado i love

It with barbecue chips i don’t know what else to say and boom you’ve got an absolutely delicious homemade fresh ahi tuna so dang good