Dilly tuna salad

A little lunch treat to get you through.

I was annoyed with myself for asking you to zest a lemon, and then leaving you with the juice…but then I realized a little arugula topped with a drizzle of olive oil, and a squeeze of lemon was the perfect accompaniment to this tuna toast!

If you told teenage Catherine that this tuna salad would be her go-to comfort food lunch, she would have laughed, and probably gagged. Fish in a can? Yuck. Mayo? Look Away! Thankfully, we evolve, and at some unknown point in my journey through adulthood I realized that tinned fish and mayo are keystones to a lightening fast lunch that tastes delicious, and powers you through a busy day. Many afternoons I simply pop a tin of sardines and eat them in the sunny spot in my kitchen with crackers and a squeeze of lemon, but that’s a post for another day. Today, we’re talking dilly tuna salad.

Clementine locking eyes with my dilly tuna on toast.

I can’t fathom ever becoming a count-your-grams-of-protein kind of gal, but I did accept — at some point in my 30s — that I feel endlessly better if I make an effort to eat some kind of protein with most meals. Do you feel the same way? I like to make a batch of this tuna salad to keep in the fridge for a couple of days (or I use it in one go making sandwiches for my family of four), and I always feel a little better for it. Go ahead, congratulate yourself on not eating Goldfish and ice cream bars for lunch. It’s not always easy!

Most often, I pile dilly tuna on some kind of seeded toast, but it’s also lovely as a topper for a green salad, or scooped up with these crackers, tortilla chips, or potato chips (the sturdy kind).

Ok, now for some tips. You might be thinking, “Girl, it’s not that serious, we’re talking tuna salad”, and you’d be right, but if we’re going to make something you could just pick up in the grocery store’s prepared food case, I think we should set ourselves up for success. My wish for you is a truly transcendental tuna-salad-eating experience.

1. Buy tuna packed in oil if you can. It’s silkier and tastier, and you don’t need to worry about draining, really. If you’re buying it in a glass jar, just pluck out the filets with a fork. I usually opt for the stuff in a can because frankly, it’s much more affordable and it does the job. If you already have tuna packed in water, no worries, just add a smidge more mayo if the salad seems a bit dry.

2. If you can’t find fresh dill, you can swap it for parsley, or chives, or skip it all together. Speaking of skipping, you don’t need to add the chopped shallot if you’re not a raw-onion person, but I will say it’s delicious here.

3. Buy refrigerated pickles if you can, they offer a lot more crunch, which we are going for here. I love Grillo’s , personally.

I know I said I usually use the CANNED tuna in a oil, but my friend Joshua Scherz who owns BELA brand seafood sent me a box of goodies — it’s his sardines that I regularly hoover for lunch — and I couldn’t wait to crack into this beautiful jar of tuna filets.

That’s it. I hope you find a moment this week to take a proper lunch break, whip up dilly tuna salad, and settle into a pocket of sunshine to eat it in peace.

RECIPE

Dilly tuna salad

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

3 5-ounce cans of oil-packed tuna

¼ cup mayo

1 shallot finely chopped (if you hate raw onions you can skip this)

1/3 cup chopped dill pickles - this is about 1 whole pickles or a stack of 4 sandwich slices

2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

Zest of 1 lemon

Salt and black pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. In a medium mixing bowl add all the ingredients (no need to drain the tuna if it’s oil-packed in a can, if it’s filets in a jar, just fish them out with a fork, but please drain if it’s tuna packed in water.)

2. Break up the tuna with a fork and mix everything well to combine. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.

3. Serve on toasted bread, on top of a salad, or with chips for scooping.