Tuna salad is an extremely versatile dish that works as a snack or a light lunch. You can eat it out of a bowl, or a bed of greens, on Paleo-friendly crackers, cucumber slices, or, as one recipe suggests, homemade sweet potato chips! It’s a great energy booster, as tuna is packed with protein, and you can make it any way you like with vegetables, fruits, and much more.
1. Avocado and Lime Tuna Salad
This simple tuna salad is made fresh and light with flavors of lime and avocado—admittedly, the avocado does a lot of work toward making this tuna salad extra creamy without any mayonnaise. I also love the crunchy roasted pumpkin seeds added for texture!
Photo: Reclaiming Yesterday
2. Tahini Tuna Salad Stuff Avocados
Here’s another tuna salad that gets stuffed into an avocado half (yum). This one is made with rich, creamy, protein-rich tahini—one of my favorite whole foods ingredients to whip up in a food processer to save money and eat fresh.
The lemons and radishes go a long way toward making what can sometimes be a heavier dish into something perfect for spring, with pieces of crunchy, spicy radish, bell peppers, and dill pickles. This is so fun piled into cucumber rounds!
Instead of chunky, shredded tuna, this salad is made with ahi tuna steak, mixed lettuce, asparagus spears (yum!), green beans, tomatoes, capers, and olives. Top it off with lemon herb vinaigrette, the recipe for which is included with the salad.
This is an avocado tuna salad in a very literal sense. You’re going to mix up a simple but delicious tuna salad, and stuff it into partially scooped-out avocados! This would be a great complete lunch to pack for the office or school, if you have a way to keep them upright.
Photo: A Squirrel In The Kitchen
6. Peaches and Tuna Salada With Arugula
This tuna salad features the bright, sweet flavors of Granny Smith apples and fresh or canned peaches to balance out the savory flavor of the tuna and seasonings like dill and chives. I love the baby arugula as a garnish. This tuna salad would be perfect over cucumbers as well!
I love the ratio of tuna to vegetables in this salad, and of course the beautiful colors. You don’t have to measure, really—just throw in as much or as little of whatever you like. This blogger includes the recipe for homemade pesto. Yum!
This snack has a lot of room for experimentation. You don’t have to use peas if you’d prefer another vegetable or a mix, and if you are strict about dairy, you can use coconut milk yogurt or your favorite dairy alternative. I’d go for basil in the chopped herbs!
9. Super Simple Tuna Fish Salad
Here’s another tuna salad that’s lighter on the tuna and uses more fresh vegetables, like mixed greens, tomato, olives, zucchini, avocado, green onion, and others. The balsamic vinegar, fresh mint, and other herbs and seasonings give this salad a lovely flavor.
Photo: Keto Diet
This recipe more closely resembles traditional tuna salads, but is made suitable for a Paleo and/or ketogenic diet by using extra virgin olive oil and homemade mayonnaise. The mayonnaise recipe is included in the post (and yes, it’s healthy, too!).
I love this idea! This blogger includes the recipe for homemade sweet potato chips (a great low-carb alternative to potato chips, and way tastier, if you ask me) that you’re going to pile high with this four-ingredient tuna salad (tuna, dill, celery, salt). Easy and impressive at the same time.
12. Seared Ahi Tuna Salad With Citrus Ginger Dressing
Here’s another ahi tuna steak salad that’s packed with fresh vegetables like shaved carrots (you can leave out the edamame) and red onion, and awesome additions like avocado and segmented grapefruit. Definitely don’t skip the delicious citrus ginger dressing.
If you don’t eat white potatoes, feel free to use sweet potatoes here—if anything, they’ll just add extra flavor to this already flavorful salad. The capers and balsamic vinegar are the perfect touch, and the hard-boiled eggs are filling and protein-rich.
Photo: Handmade In The Heartland
For this creamy and dense, delicious tuna salad, you’ll need just canned tuna, scallions, a stalk of celery (diced), avocados, and salt/pepper for seasoning. This is great as a dip for sticks of carrots and colorful bell peppers.
This tuna salad really is fully loaded—with celery, cucumber, peppers, onion and avocado to be exact. Deliciously crunchy and flavorful, it’s drizzled with olive oil and apple cider vinegar for healthy fats and even more flavor.
I’m loving all these recipes that use cucumber slices instead of crackers for tuna salad. What a way to sneak an extra vegetable into each bite. For this recipe, you’ll need homemade coconut oil mayonnaise to make your salad extra creamy.
This creative idea allows you to experience flavors and textures that aren’t usually part of a tuna salad. But why shouldn’t they be? This is so easy to make, with just tuna, homemade mayonnaise, and your favorite trail mix. You could pack the parts in your lunch box and assemble at work!
Photo: Inspiralized
18. Shredded Chard and Apple Noodle Tuna Salad
Now we’re getting fancy! For this recipe, you’ll need a spiralizer to turn your apples into noodles (honestly, if you don’t have a spiralizer, just dice them up small and the world will go on). This salad is made extra good with chopped pecans and a homemade lemon Dijon vinaigrette (recipe included).
This tuna salad is familiar, but with extra twists that make it so good, your friends and family will be left raving about it for weeks. You’ll need solid white tuna, chopped carrot, chopped celery, chopped red onion, garlic, healthy mayonnaise, salt, and pepper.
20. Sweet Potato Salad Nicoise
This salad looks amazing, with flavors like sweet potato, cucumber, and apple cider vinegar. Also, it has a handful of pomegranate seeds—how could I not want to eat something with a handful of pomegranate seeds? They’re ripe where I live as I’m writing this!
21. More Easy Paleo Tuna Salad
Here’s another simple tuna salad that’s similar to the ones you used to enjoy, but lighter and mayonnaise-free. This recipe includes a spicy brown mustard and tarragon dressing made with olive oil, white wine vinegar, and honey (use raw honey to make it even better).
Photo: Peachy Palate
22. Flaked Tuna and Almond Salad
Soaking nuts can help make them healthier and easier to digest. In the case of almonds, at least, it also brings out a juicy sweetness that just isn’t there in the unsoaked nut. Give it a try in this delicious flake tuna and almond salad—so good, and good for you, too.
23. Quick and Easy Dijon Tuna Salad
This salad definitely isn’t lying about being quick and easy. And no mayonnaise needed. Just tuna, celery, a diced onion, Dijon mustard, lemon, salt and pepper, and your choice of greens as the bed. Perfect as a dip for celery or other vegetables.
This tuna salad was inspired by the Whole 30 (a monthlong healthy food detox), but you can certainly enjoy it whenever you want. My favorite parts of this recipe are the dill pickle and the Medjool dates, which add a chewy sweetness while the pickle is sour.
Most of us are used to eating tuna salad as a cold dish or dip, but did you ever think about a hot tuna salad? Cooking up your tuna salad gives a whole new depth to the flavors and satisfies that occasional craving for something that is both fresh and hot.
Photo: Grits and Chopsticks
These tuna cucumber cup recipes are so great, I just had to include one more. This one is also inspired by the Whole 30 detox, but any Whole 30-compliant mayonnaise will also be Paleo-friendly. This recipe also uses Safe Catch tuna, because it’s tested for mercury and sustainably caught.
27. Mayoless Tuna Salad, Three Ways
Let’s close out with a simple mayonnaise-free tuna salad that you can make three different ways. Using other oils and fats allows the tuna flavors to shine in these classic, Asian, and Nicoise salad variations.
