Ingredients:
2 5-oz cans solid white tuna packed in water, drained
2-3 tablespoons dill pickle relish
1 stalk celery, diced
1/4 cup diced red onion
1/2 tablespoon tahini paste*
1/2 tablespoons lemon pepper seasoning
3-4 tablespoons mayonnaise
to serve:
4 hard-boiled eggs, sliced into wedges
1/2 head iceberg lettuce, thinly sliced
2-3 tomatoes, sliced
4-6 slices thick cut bacon, cut into bite-sized pieces
flatbread or pita, warmed (optional)
Directions:
In a medium bowl, flake the tuna with a fork. Add the relish, celery, and red onion. Stir. Set aside.
In a small bowl, whisk together the tahini, mayo and lemon pepper until smooth. Pour over the tuna mixture and stir to evenly distribute all ingredients.
Place sliced tomatoes on a plate. Top with bacon, lettuce and hardboiled egg wedges. Seve with flatbread or pita if desired.
Serves 4
*A good alternative to tahini in this that I love is sesame Goddess dressing. Annie's Naturals makes it but I buy the knock-off at Aldi. Use it to taste (I use about 2-3 tablespoons and slightly less mayo). Then I can also use it on salad vs just buying tahini to make this with.
My thoughts:
I ate a lot of very simple, classic tuna salad growing up (my mom loooves making and packing lunches) but as an adult, I generally go for a slightly Mediterranean vibe with sesame and lemon, if I don't have lemons I use lemon pepper which I buy in bulk at Costco for a quick zip of flavor. The beauty of tuna salad is that you can make it with ingredients you have on hand, in my option so even though I dress up the flavor a bit I try to keep to pantry ingredients honestly unless I'm feeling really posh.I love stuffed tomatoes but it is a little early for tomatoes in Maryland so I've been making do with some from warmer states and they have been fairly tasty but too small to stuff. In the meantime, I've been making an unstuffed tuna type thing for lunch when I don't have leftovers.
To make this dinner-worthy I added bacon and hard-boiled eggs to make it a bit more filling and some flatbread on the side. I made the tuna and eggs ahead of time and all I had to do was fry the bacon (pre-cooked bacon is sad) and assemble. I know people hate on iceberg but it has a great crunch, actually does have some nutrition to it and unlike romaine, hasn't killed anyone lately.
This was so refreshing on a hot almost-summer day! And who doesn't love a meal that comes together in just a few minutes on a weeknight?
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