In this post, I share my homemade tuna salad recipe and the back story that goes with this humble meal.
I’ve been making this tuna salad for years, but as I mentioned in my Brown Sugar and Buttermilk Banana Bread recipe post, I’ve made a bad habit of not sharing homemade classic recipes on this blog. Primarily because there is always pressure for food and content creators to produce something new and different.
This has always been a sore spot for me because I have a lot of great recipes still in my little blue folder. Recipes that are written on pieces of paper, napkins, and the like. They are simple and delicious, but I don’t think of them as post-worthy recipes. And then I am reminded there is a reason we come back to homemade classics – especially the ones that come with stories.
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A Humble Salad
I love a good tuna salad sandwich. Tuna is humble in the truest sense of the word – it knows its strengths and acknowledges its limitations. It’s respectful when paired with other ingredients – playing nicely, collaboratively to build something better. Add a side of kettle chips and a crisp dill pickle and you have yourself a very happy plate of food. Tuna doesn’t have to prove itself a worthy ingredient. It knows its own value.
We’re still talking about tuna fish, right? Yes. And no. But mostly, yes. Tuna salad is one of those items most people skim over on a restaurant menu and quickly dismiss. It’s not glamorous. It’s a workhorse food. It may not be what most people crave when they open the pantry cupboard for a quick meal, but a good tuna salad always satisfies when served. It quietly shows up and shows out, and I think there is an extended metaphor there for how we might choose to live our lives. That is what I love about a good tuna salad sandwich.
This Homemade Tuna Salad Recipe Has a Back Story
The last meal I made for my mother was tuna salad with a little pasta mixed in. Not a very exciting meal, I know, but it was a perfect meal for what would be the last day I had with her.
In the final few weeks of her life, my sister brought our mom home to live with her. She had “good days” – days that most people would agree were still not good by any stretch of the imagination, but they were good for her. She also had some not-so-good days, and so did we.
If you’ve ever provided end of life care for a loved one, you know that there is always more to the story. The full story can be read between the lines spoken, and in the lines of the face telling it. My oldest sister had carried the lion’s share of our mother’s care in earlier weeks, and so, when it became apparent mom couldn’t live alone any more, she came to live with my middle sister.
Those days, we took turns caring for her. Since my sister often worked weekends, I would come and stay at her house and help with mom’s care needs, cook a little and just be available. I used a fair amount of work PTO during the week that spring, too. I don’t know how we juggled and figured it all out, but we managed to move her from one apartment to another, shuttle her to appointments, keep the oxygen tanks filled, measure out the medications, and tend to her other care needs. We made a pretty good team.
It was a warm April Saturday when I came to spend the day with her. I prepped a simple tuna pasta salad for lunch – with enough left over to give my sister a break from cooking. I remember how mom ate very well that day – more than usual. She had more energy, was more chatty than she had been, and it seemed the sunshine was doing her some good. I wondered if she were on the mend.
I had given her a pedicure that Saturday, but couldn’t finish the job because I had forgotten my nail polishes. Before I left on Sunday, I promised her I’d bring a few colors for her to choose from. We never got to finish that pedicure. My sister called my a couple days later, saying that mom had taken a turn during the night and was fading fast. I needed to get to her house as soon as possible. She didn’t think mom would make it through the night.
I threw a few things in my overnight bag (which had remained half-packed on a chair for several weeks by then), jumped in the car, and prayed the construction traffic would clear so I could arrive before mom passed. When I finally got there 90 minutes later, both my sisters were talking with another nurse who had been helping with mom’s care. I went to my mother’s bedside, whispered I was there, and held her hand as her breathing slowed and she slipped away.
A few days earlier, we had watched TV together, ate tuna salad and contemplated a sassy hot pink for her toes. It was a good day.
So why am I sharing this story? I don’t know exactly, but I felt like somebody needed to hear it. I suppose for me, there is comfort in a simple tuna salad sandwich. You might think that making tuna salad would be a sad trigger for me, but it’s quite the opposite now. Tuna salad brings a smile to my face whenever I make it. It’s not the fresh dill, the lemon zest, or the crunch of the celery, onion, and sweet pickles that I enjoy – although I do. Now, it’s the treasured memory of sharing a simple meal – and one last good day with my mother.
Yes, tuna salad is cheap eats. It’s desperation cooking, a little salt, a little spice of life, and a dallop of resilience mixed together and often served between two slices of carb comfort. But few things carry the power of memory like food. Food can heal body and soul. For better or worse, we connect with and crave certain foods for the memories they invoke and the comfort they bring. She had been sick and hurting for some time, but I like to think that simple sandwich brought her a little joy that day.
So, the next time you need a quick meal, a comfort meal, or to conjure a sweet memory, give this simple tuna salad recipe a try. Or, just give me a call and I’ll crack open a couple cans and we can sit together and share a sandwich and a story or two.
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Homemade Tuna Salad
Course: SaladsCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy4
servings5
minutesA simple salad of tuna, fresh dill, lemon zest, crunchy celery, red onion, sweet pickles, mayonnaise and Dijon mustard.
Ingredients
Two 5-ounce cans of tuna fish packed in water, drained.
1/4 cup celery, finely diced
1 Tbsp. red onion, finely diced
1 Tbsp. sweet pickle relish
1 tsp. fresh dill, minced
1/2 tsp. lemon zest
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1/2 tsp. Dijon mustard
salt and pepper to taste
Directions
- In a medium-size mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve as sandwiches with a thin slice of lettuce and tomato or add two cups of cooked pasta to the mix for a hearty pasta salad.
