This Lemon-Dill Tuna Salad is dressed lightly with mayo/yogurt and jam-packed with lots of tasty things like sweet pickles, celery, and shallot. It makes a fantastic sandwich.
Lemon-Dill Tuna Salad
Course: LunchCuisine: American4-6
sandwichesTo prep, chop the celery, shallot, and pickles all together, then place the dill atop the chopped mixture continue chopping until the dill is chopped finely.
Ingredients
1 lemon, zested and juiced
2 celery ribs, finely chopped
1 large shallot, finely chopped
6 Tbs chopped sweet pickles
1 Tbs finely chopped fresh dill, plus more for garnish
¼ cup mayonnaise
2 Tbs Greek yogurt
1 tsp Dijon mustard
½ tsp sugar
¼ tsp ground pepper
⅛ tsp salt
2 cans (5-oz. each) oil-packed Italian tuna, drained
Sliced whole-wheat bread
Tomato slices (optional)
Avocado slices (optional)
Lettuce
Directions
- In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine 2 Tbs lemon juice (repurpose any remaining) and 2 tsp zest with celery, shallot, pickles, dill, mayo, yogurt, mustard, sugar, pepper, and salt. Flake the tuna over the mixture. Toss gently. Cover and chill for 1 to 24 hours before serving.
- Serve with (tomato, avocado, and) lettuce, sandwiched between slices of an artisan, light wheat bread.
Notes
- Substitutions: (pickled) red onion for the shallot. If you substitute extremely well-drained, water-packed tuna for the oil-packed, you may need more mayo/yogurt.
This salad is light on mayo and yogurt. That elevates the dill and lemon – which are especially good with the tuna – higher up in the flavor profile. It also leaves the tuna tasting very fresh. This is much more nuanced than what I usually think of as a tuna salad sandwich, and it’s quickly become my favorite.
Social Learning
If you make four sandwiches, they’ll be impressively generous without being obscene. Stretching it to six is hardly meager. Do so while laying on generous amounts of the optional toppings, and you’re right back into the “impressively generous” territory.
This recipe is easily halved. But don’t worry about the leftovers. (See below.)
About the ingredients…
This is a juicy tuna salad, so it needs a bread that’s not too soft and certainly not mushy. An artisan loaf of cracked wheat farm bread is perfect. Toast would also be a nice choice.
You might wonder what the hell sugar is doing in the ingredient list. Leave it out if you want, but don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. It’s a small amount, but I find that it brightens up the flavors – especially the lemon, I think – without leaving the salad tasting even remotely sweetened.
Tomato adds a bit of flavor, but not a ton. I think the tomato might go better with the sandwich if you toasted the bread. The avocado flavor gets almost completely (but not quite) lost in the sandwich, but it adds a really nice dimension to the texture.
The garnish makes sense only if you’re serving this open-faced, or in some similar fashion. You can see that I didn’t bother with this, only because I forgot. I usually eat whatever I photograph either during or immediately after shooting it, and sometimes I’m just so excited to get to it that I forget to garnish.
Afterward…
The shallot and tuna will remain with you for quite some time, so you’ll want something to clear your palate: one or two large glasses of sparkling water, a mug of tea, or something citrusy or tart but not sugary. Surprisingly, this effect diminishes in about 24 hours – not in your mouth (hahaha) but in the tuna itself. That’s why I recommend that as the upper end of the chill time.
It keeps quite nicely in the fridge. Four days later, this tuna salad is just as good as it was when it was freshly made. You do have to give it a good stir when it comes time to use it, though.
The Backstory
I like to make tuna salad, but using lemon and dill as the backbone for one is new for me, and I’m so glad I tried it.
One of the sources that I modeled this recipe after is That Skinny Chick Can Bake, which I regularly frequent. Liz – the site’s author – recommends using jarred tuna fillets. I recommend an imported Italian tuna for the same reason: higher quality. In this recipe, the taste of the tuna is much more front-and-center than it is in the everyday tuna salad your grandmother made, so you want a tuna that tastes great right out of the can. Indeed, as far back as 1893, a New York socialite wrote a gourmet cookbook called Beverages and Sandwiches for Your Husband’s Friends, because, I don’t know, her friends didn’t matter? And in it, she recommended imported tuna for her tuna sandwiches. Granted, local tuna wasn’t a thing, and she was wealthy. But still. You want a good tuna.
The tuna sandwich has a massive backstory in the U.S. An easy internet search will give you tons of interesting information about it. Some people used to make their tuna salad sandwiches with “boiled dressing,” which is apparently a homemade version of Miracle Whip, which was, before the invention of the food processor or stick blender, easier to make that mayo. They also used to add things like chopped boiled eggs, sweet corn, and/or black olives to their tuna salad. I love all those ideas. (I thought cucumber slices would be a good addition, but they weren’t.)
Lemon-Dill Tuna Salad
Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! unless otherwise credited. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. Thank you, Kesor and ⌘+C. Huge thank you to my food hero, Harold McGee. References: BHG, Eating Well, That Skinny Chick Can Bake. Make It Like a Man! is ranked by Feedspot as #13 in the Top 30 Men’s Cooking Blogs.
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So easy and delicious! I always like the combo of lemon, dill and seafood.
Thanks, Angie!
Another great meal. Have you ever cooked professionally? — that is, have you ever been a paid chef?
Good God no! I love to cook, but making a living from cooking would be a completely different story, and would involve too many things that I don’t think I’d enjoy. You know, it’s one thing to make something for your friends and family and have it turn out well, but it’s a completely different thing to do it on demand, and have you livelihood depend on the result.
That looks like a fantastically delicious sandwich, Jeff. Great flavour and texture combinations.
Thank you, Gary!
I like the idea of an impressively generous sandwich. Really it’s the way it should always be. Great flavours here.
Thanks, Pauline!
What a delicious tuna salad with a perfect flavour combination!
Thanks, Ben!
We eat tuna regularly, particularly in Spain where it is a main staple for Spaniards. I will try the lemon and dill combo next time. Lemon is frequently an ingredient in Spanish tuna salad. I used to like the Italian brand in a can that we would buy at Costco but the last few cans have been mush, like cat food so it’s turned me off. That is when I discovered the jarred tuna and Costco has one that equals only about 3 tins so it’s a bit of a splurge but well worth it. The only downside is that you must keep it in the refrigerator after it’s been opened so the olive oil congeals and needs time to come to room temperature before use.
I’ll have to try the jarred version! Thanks for mentioning it! The first time I had really good tuna, it was in France, along the Atlantic coast. At first, I was surprised to discover that canned tuna was a thing in France – even though, if memory serves, canned foods is a French invention – but when I tried the canned tuna, wow! It was so good.
What I love about your post…. I can’t remember the last time I simply enjoyed a good tuna salad sandwich. I really like the combination of lemon and dill. Sometimes we Americans overlook the simplicity of a good sandwich.
I agree! Thanks!
Tuna fish sandwich is my husband’s favorite! Tuna fish salad is so versatile and lends itself to a variety of flavors. Sounds like you found a winning combination Jeff!
Thanks, Judee!
This Tuna Salad with Dill and Lemon sounds like a refreshing and sophisticated twist on the classic. The light use of mayo and yogurt really lets the dill and lemon shine through, giving the tuna salad a vibrant, fresh flavor, Yum!
Thank you, Raymund!
I finally got around to making this. To be honest, I wish my mother still were alive so I could prove to her that a tuna salad exists that’s tastier and more interesting than hers! It’s a great recipe!
Thank you so much! Maybe it’s best your mom went to her grave thinking hers was best, though! 🙂
I’m so in love with this tuna salad recipe. We like the lightened-up ingredients so the tuna shines through!
Thanks, Jules!
Sorry about comment delays — I have been in Botswana for the past two weeks. Lemon in tuna salad is my favorite and the dill really sounds great. I love a tuna salad sandwich.
Botswana? Wow!
This looks so yummy , my husband usually makes tuna sandwiches when I need a break. I have to show him this blog post .
I hope he makes one for you!
I am personally not fond of Tuna or sandwich unless it is a fruit and cream sandwich but the rest in the family would love this. I make them Tuna sandwich but as a South Asian cook it in lots of onion, chillies, sauces.
Mmm! I’ve never considered what a South Asian tuna sandwich would be like, but you make it sound fantastic!
Yum I love tuna and this sounds delicious Jeff.
Thank you, Sherry!
Un bon sandwich au thon c’est bon
Bises
Thank you, Delphine!