It is not often in one’s life that a chance arises to espouse the many virtues of the illustrious tuna salad but as luck would have it, this blog post presents such an opportunity today. Underrated, under-appreciated, tuna salad has for too long been the last scrawny kid picked for softball; that sock at the bottom of your dryer you forgot to remove five months ago and now it’s a weird looking crust-sock and probably not even a sock at all.
Here’s a tip: Look up “tuna” on Thesaurus.com and you’ll find among the list of synonyms words like “honorable,” “gallant,” even “hunk.” Why? Because Thesaurus.com knows what’s up. That’s why.
Anyway, there’s a point to this and that point is: I have a recipe for tuna salad. It’s a recipe that’ll be equally appealing to both the frozen, mini-pizza bagel lover and the discerning gourmand who knows what Kabocha squash is and how to cook it.
Trust me, after you read this recipe, you’ll never think about tuna-in-a-can salad the same way again. You might not think about anything the same way again. And if you do find yourself still hating on the tuna salad when this ode to preserved aquatic edibles is through, just remember Thesaurus.com and that disgusting sock. 

Melissa’s Tuna Salad

Ingredients

• 2 cans of Albacore tuna (make sure it’s low salt)
• 1 handful of fresh basil, rough chopped
• 1 jalapeño pepper, diced
• 1 avocado, cut into small chunks
• 2 tsp. mayonnaise
• 1 tsp. cold-pressed olive oil
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

In a bowl, combine the tuna, mayonnaise and olive oil. When you remove the tuna, be careful to drain out all the water or risk making a watery, goopy tuna salad that will be nowhere near the awesomeness of the dish we’re putting together …
Add jalapeño and avocado. Mix until combined but do not let the avocado get mushy. (A close second to a watery, goopy, tuna salad is a mushed-avocado tuna salad.)

Top with basil and a drizzle of olive oil.
Literally that’s it. Sit back and enjoy the tuna-rific irreproachability of what you’ve just created because yes, it’s that easy and yes, it’s that good.
XO,
Melis

✵

Melissa Kandel is a Southern California-based writer and the founder/author of little word studio. If you really want, you can follow little word studio on Instagram here.