Avocado Tuna Salad Sandwich
Avocado Tuna Salad Sandwiches are a quick and easy protein-packed lunch option for boxed lunches! Tuna salad is loaded with celery, onions, and chopped dill pickles. It’s creamy, healthy and perfect to serve on a sandwich, with crackers or on lettuce wraps!
Avos and Tuna.. together in a sandwich?
Count me in! This easy tuna salad recipe is one of those things that you keep in your back pocket. It’s great to use in a tuna melt, perfect to serve with rice cakes or multigrain crackers, on homemade protein bagels, dip with corn chips, scoop onto low carb tortilla wraps, it’s absolutely perfect between two slices of no-knead bread, and the list goes on and on!
Random thought, but anyone else bothered by it when people call it a tuna fish salad? Nope, just me? It just sounds so redundant!
I digress.
If you’ve got a few pantry staple ingredients, you can make this tuna salad sandwich in around 5 minutes. I always have canned tuna in my pantry for rainy days. Whether I’m looking to turn it into a tunacado on homemade focaccia bread with a scoop of basil pesto and serving it up panini style or adding it to homemade tuna pasta salad, tuna is one of those classics that you keep around. Whether you’re headed to the beach in the summertime and need something for lunch to pop into the icebox, or you’re looking for a flavorful desk lunch, a homemade tuna salad sandwich will never serve you wrong!
To make my tuna salad, I start with chopped celery, red onions, and dill pickles or sweet pickle relish. Add it fresh herbs (dill is what I’m thinking), and a dollop of mayo along with a few seasonings. It’s so quick and easy and all you really have to decide is whether or not you want to serve this with potato chips on the side!
Ingredients for homemade tuna salad sandwiches:
- Canned Tuna: Both oil-packed tuna and water-packed tuna will work for this recipe. I like using albacore tuna. Feel free to use what you like and have at home. Make sure to drain the tuna well. I found that using low quality mayonnaise and not draining the tuna in a sieve left me with a bit of a messy tuna salad – it was just sad! Tuna salad shouldn’t be liquid-y!
- Mayonnaise: I suggest using a good, high-quality mayonnaise. Low quality mayonnaise tends to become watery in this recipe. This is my favorite mayonnaise of all time.
- Celery: I like to finely mince the celery so that you get a little crunch in every bite!
- Red Onions: Adds bite and really works well with the dill pickles and other savory ingredients.
- Dill Pickles + Pickle Juice: the pickle juice is my secret ingredient! I was a fresh lemon juice girlie for a while there until one day when I used my leftover pepperoncini juice and my tuna salad sandwich game changed forever. I’ll be honest; if I have pepperoncini’s in the fridge, I’ll still use that instead of pickle juice. The hot and peppery liquid works so well in an egg salad or tuna salad sandwich. But pickle juice works just fine too!
- Seasonings: You’ll need garlic powder, kosher salt, and some black pepper. Feel free to add in red pepper flakes for a little heat or swap the black pepper for lemon pepper seasonings if you’d like! This is totally your call. You can also add in fresh herbs like chives, parsley, or dill.
- Bread or Low-carb option: You can use homemade white or cheddar jalapeño bread, serve this with high fiber tortillas, or on multigrain crackers, lettuce wraps, or anything else that you like to serve your tuna salad on. Heck, you can even hollow out a red bell pepper or a few sweet peppers and serve the best tuna salad in that!
- Other add-ins: Sometimes I’ll also add a squeeze of jalapeno mustard or dijon mustard to the mix. Other times I’ll use chopped pickled jalapeños. Some times I’ll add slices of avocado to my sandwich. You can use baby spinach, lettuce, a spring mix, kale or whatever else you like!
How to make a classic tuna salad, but better.
- Start with the tuna. Make sure to drain the liquid from the tuna really well. If you prefer a mousse-like tuna salad, I highly suggest pulsing the tuna with the mayonnaise in the food processor. But be careful here. The texture can go from whipped to liquid really fast so don’t over do it! I usually skip this step.
- Mix it all in. In a medium bowl, combine together the tuna, mayonnaise, celery, red onion, pickles, pickle juice, garlic powder, kosher salt and black pepper. Stir it all together and give it a taste. The flavor should be to your liking, so if you want a little more salt, garlic powder, more pickles, or some heat – go for it!
- Serve it up. Toast the bread if you’re serving this like a sandwich. Then top with lettuce leaves, slices of avocado, and scoop the tuna salad on top. Top with another slice of bread and serve this up!
- Storage. Leftover tuna salad can be kept in an air tight container for up to 3 days. It honestly tastes better as it sits so it’s even better on day 2!
If you like this recipe, you might also like:
- Mediterranean Shrimp Orzo Salad
- Mediterranean Tuna Orzo Salad
- Seared Cod Fish Tacos
- Perfect Pan-Fried Fish in Basil Lemon Butter Sauce
- Crispy Rice Spicy Salmon
Avocado Tuna Salad Sandwich
Avocado Tuna Salad Sandwiches are a quick and easy protein-packed lunch option for boxed lunches! Tuna salad is loaded with celery, onions, and chopped dill pickles. It's creamy, healthy and perfect to serve on a sandwich, with crackers or on lettuce wraps!
Ingredients
- 3 (5-ounce) cans tuna, drained
- ½ cup mayonnaise (plus 1-2 tbsp if needed)
- 3 tablespoons celery, finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons red onion, minced
- 2 tablespoons dill pickles, minced (or use sweet relish, see notes)
- 2 teaspoons pickle juice (or lemon juice/pepperoncini juice)
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon EACH: kosher salt AND black pepper
- Slices of bread, focaccia, or tortilla
- Sliced avocados, lettuce or baby spinach, as needed
Instructions
- TUNA: Drain the liquid from the tuna. To make an extra smooth tuna salad, you can pulse the tuna and mayonnaise in a food processor. This makes a mousse-like salad. I typically skip this.
- MIX: In medium bowl, combine the tuna, mayonnaise, celery, red onion, minced pickles, pickle juice, garlic powder, kosher salt, and black pepper. Taste and adjust with more salt as desired, this will vary depending on the amount of salt in your tuna. If time permits, let the tuna salad hang out for 10 minutes; this allows the flavors to develop a bit more – totally optional though!
- TOAST: Toast the bread or heat the tortilla if making a wrap. Add baby spinach, lettuce and avocado slices as desired. Scoop tuna on top one side and top with the second slice of bread. Serve!
Notes
- Additional Add-ins: Feel free to play around with this! Sometimes I'll add a squeeze of jalapeño mustard/dijon or even a sprinkle of red pepper flakes. You can use lemon pepper seasoning/ pizza seasonings etc. Traders pickle seasoning is what I'm planning on trying next!
- Pickles: Sometimes I’ll swap the dill pickles for bread and butter, or even use hot and sweet pickled jalapeños! You can play around with the mix-ins a bunch for this recipe!
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Nutrition Information:
Yield:
4Serving Size:
1/4th of recipeAmount Per Serving: Calories: 334Total Fat: 21gCarbohydrates: 2gProtein: 31g
** the nutritional facts do not include bread, lettuce, or avocado. ** The nutrition information is provided as a courtesy and is just an estimate. To get the most accurate information, please input the ingredients you've used into a nutrition calculator.
