I never had the privilege of meeting my great-grandmother-in-law Lily, but her legacy has lived on through, amongst other things, her tuna fish recipe! Be sure to check the notes below for a twist on an already upgraded classic.
Grandma Lily’s Tuna Fish
Serves: 2
Prep Time: 15 minutes
INGREDIENTS
- 2 cans of tuna fish
- 1/4 cup of mayonnaise
- 3 or so gherkin pickles, finely diced (crucial ingredient!)
- 3 Tbs of gherkin pickle water
- 1/4 cup of a red onion, finely diced (roughly 1/4 of a small red onion)
- Salt and freshly cracked pepper
- Optional: diced pepperoncini, diced pickled jalapeño
DIRECTIONS
- Drain the water out of the cans of tuna, and put the tuna in a medium sized mixing bowl.
- Mash the tuna with a fork to break up the big chunks, and stir in the mayonnaise.
- Dice the gherkin pickles and add to the bowl.
- Dice the red onion and add to the bowl.
- If you’re adding pepperoncini and/or pickled jalapeño, dice and add just a small amount of those to the bowl.
- Pour the gherkin juice into the bowl, and stir to completely combine all ingredients together.
- Add salt to taste, and as much freshly cracked black pepper as you’d like (about 1/4 tsp salt and 10 cracks of pepper should do it.)
- All done! Wasn’t that easy?
NOTES
- The optional ingredients (pepperoncini and pickled jalapeño) are my own twist on already great recipe. I almost always add them if I have them in my fridge. It’s worth trying once with and once without to see which you prefer!
- It’s really easy to double, triple, or even quadruple this recipe! So decide how many cans of tuna you need first and then simply multiply the rest.
- Feel comfortable to stray from the measurements and add more or less of any individual ingredient you like or dislike.
- Tuna fish will last in the fridge in an air-tight container for up to 5 days and the flavors will only get better each day.
Bravo! I just added two hard boiled eggs.
Can’t go wrong there! I’ll have to try that next time…
Try a tablespoon-ish of your favorite mustard and a teaspoon or so of dill. You can thank me later.
Sounds great!
That recipe is similar to the one I grew up with, and continue to make myself. My mom always used miracle whip instead of mayonnaise, and so do i. We put the sweet pickles, and sweet onions in it as well. We also add two boiled eggs. I also sprinkle a little salt in it. I have found that with miracle whip, extra pickle juice isn’t really necessary. However, I do add sweet pickle juice to my potato salad!❤️❤️❤️
That’s awesome, I bet miracle whip is great in this I’ll have to try it!
This is fabulous David!!! I had always cut the onions because my mother made tuna with yellow or white onions. Way too strong for me. But the purple or red whichever you call it was perfect and not overpowering!!! I did add a few boiled eggs out of habit but I think it would have been just as good without them. I also made it with dill since I was out of sweet but will try that next time. I just wiped out half the recipe with a bunch of club crackers!!! Perfect!!! Thanks so much. My hat is off to Grandma Lily!!!
Awesome! Thanks for sharing, and Grandma Lily would be very proud to hear her recipe is being enjoyed!
Thanks David, you’re too kind. I gotta tell you. I made it again tonight for our lunches tomorrow. It’s even better this time. 😍
It gets even better as it sits in the fridge too!