How to Cook With Tuna

Turn that everyday staple into the stuff of dreams.

Healthy, inexpensive canned tuna is just waiting for other ingredients to lift it to new heights.Bobbi Lin for The New York Times

Published April 7, 2025Updated April 7, 2025

Canned tuna can swim alongside so much more than mayo. Salty from the sea but not too fishy, it brings a lot to meals, with its juiciness and substantial yet delicate flakiness. It’s also pantry-friendly, budget-friendly and good for you. Here’s how to zhuzh up a can of tuna for a school of quick, flavor-forward dishes.

1. Add tang with tomatoes

An overhead image of a tostada topped with tuna, tomatoes and avocado on a white plate.

Tuna is rich, oily and salty. Tomatoes are anything but, which means that their sweet-and-sour juices can energize a can of tuna in raw or cooked form. Chop a plump one for tuna salad, or cook some down for a sauce.

Try these recipes

Toss chunks of tuna and tomatoes into a guacamole for a spicy tostada. | Recipe: Spicy Tuna and Avocado Tostadas
Add high-impact ingredients like warm spices, cilantro and tuna to store-bought marinara for a quick simmer with a rich result. | Recipe: Baasto iyo Suugo Tuuna (Pasta and Spiced Tuna Sauce)
For a lighter sauce for tuna pasta, let the juices from cherry tomatoes mingle with oil, vinegar, shallot, garlic and oregano. | Recipe: Pasta Salad With Marinated Tomatoes and Tuna

2. Crumble potato chips on top

A side image of a tuna sandwich filled with potato chips.

Potato chips are fun to eat, of course, and they play a pivotal role when paired with tuna, whose tenderness needs something to keep it from being too sleepy. Enter chips, which take tuna sandwiches, casseroles and more from retro to timeless with their crisp texture.

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Cover your tuna salad sandwiches with a few (or more) chips. Whether those chips are kettle, salt-and-vinegar or barbecue is an important and personal choice. | Recipe: Tuna Salad Sandwiches
Potato chips can also solve that pesky problem of tuna salad smushing out the sides of your sandwich. Fold some chips into the tuna salad for structure. | Recipe: Tuna Crunch Sandwiches
When a craving for tuna-noodle casserole hits, you might want to make it nice with your own sauce, vegetables and capers, but there’s no upgrade for the potato-chip topping. | Recipe: Tuna Noodle Casserole

3. Double up on brine

An overhead image of a niçoise salad on a white platter.

If tuna were a pop star, briny ingredients like capers, olives, pickles and kimchi would be its backing vocalists, lifting up its briny qualities. Together, they reach high notes of tang and salt. So if your tuna dish seems quiet and drab, look to the condiments in your fridge door to help it stand out.

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For a savory undercurrent to a fresh pasta with herbs and lemon, warm scallions, garlic, capers and anchovies in olive oil. | Recipe: Pasta With Tuna, Capers and Scallions
Pasta puttanesca is a powerful sauce, with jammy tomatoes, crushed red pepper, olives, capers and anchovies. Tuna, while not traditional, delivers even more briny bites, as well as heft and protein. | Recipe: Tuna Puttanesca
To ensure every forkful buzzes, Melissa Clark skips draping her niçoise salad with anchovies and instead mixes them into the dressing. | Recipe: Niçoise Salad With Basil and Anchovy-Lemon Vinaigrette
Stir kimchi and tuna together for a lively and fortifying salad to eat with nori or something starchy like rice, boiled potatoes, noodles or potato chips. | Recipe: Kimchi Tuna Salad

4. Scatter with raw sliced onion

An overhead image of tuna with tomatoes and onions on a white plate.

The tiny bits of raw onion bring excitement to tuna salad, bursting with juicy crunch and spicy kick in an otherwise creamy salad. But more is more: By cutting the onion in long, slender slices, you’ll get bigger wallops.

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Pickle red onions for a pretty-in-pink garnish. And, as an added bonus, their salty-sweet-sour brine can be used in salad dressings. | Recipe: Scarlett’s Tuna Salad
Raw onion provide necessary crunch to an easily assembled salad of tuna, tomatoes, onion, vinegar and oil. | Recipe: Tuna and Tomato Salad
Rescue a sheet-pan meal of roasted potatoes, canned tuna and brown-butter anchovy sauce from being too heavy by showering it with onions and herbs. | Recipe: Roasted Potatoes With Anchovies and Tuna

5. Add creaminess with white beans

An overhead image of tuna and white beans in a white bowl.

White beans can support the more assertive ingredients in a dish. They add creamy bites to salads, or they can be literal support, mashed into patties for frying and casseroles.

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Mash together beans, tuna, milk and aromatics for a comforting casserole. Don’t forget to top it with potato chips (and cheese, and butter). | Recipe: One-Pan Tuna-White Bean Casserole
Why choose between three-bean salad and salad niçoise, two summertime classics, when you could combine them for a substantial meal? | Recipe: Summer Vegetable Niçoise Salad
White beans dispense a velvety texture and structural glue to golden tuna cakes. | Recipe: Crispy Tuna Cakes

6. Dot with toasted sesame oil

An overhead image of tuna on a bed of white rice.

Toasted sesame oil is made by extracting the oils from slowly roasted sesame seeds. Even in minuscule doses, it adds a nutty, silky savoriness to whatever it touches. In the presence of sesame oil, tuna tastes fuller and richer.

Try these recipes

Sauce tuna and bouncy udon noodles with a sesame-soy dressing. | Recipe: Japanese-Style Tuna Noodle Salad
For a mayo-based tuna salad, incorporate spunky pickled peppers and bass-note sesame oil. | Recipe: Pepperoncini Tuna Salad
Or take it in a more comforting direction and stir together tuna, mayonnaise, sesame oil and soy sauce. | Recipe: Tuna Mayo Rice Bowl

7. Shingle cucumbers for juiciness

An overhead image of a tuna salad on a bed of lettuce next to sliced cucumbers.

Can you really enjoy a tuna sandwich without a pickle spear alongside? The pickle jolts with brine and salt (see above), but it’s also, at its heart, a cucumber, which is juicy, crisp and sweet — all things tuna is not. That’s why the two work well together (opposites attract and all that).

Try these recipes

Spicy tuna sushi rolls include sliced cucumbers for freshness. A pantry-friendly, home-style rendition should too. | Recipe: Spicy Tuna Salad With Crispy Rice
Mash tuna into tzatziki: The yogurt and cucumber in the Greek sauce is not unlike the mayonnaise and pickles in deli-style tuna salad. | Recipe: Tzatziki Tuna Salad
Pan Bagnat is a more-is-more sandwich piled with refreshing yet rich elements, then squished together so everything melds. Go on and add cucumber. | Recipe: Pan Bagnat

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