THE BEST TUNA SALAD RECIPE YOU NEVER HAD.

I know a lot of people who simply have a love-hate relationship with mayonnaise. Some love it. Some hate it. There is never a middle ground. I’m on the love-it side of the field, particularly if it is homemade. One of my favorite lunch recipes to make is my Low Carb Tuna Salad which is chock full of mayonnaise, shallots and other delicious ingredients. But, there’s a huge contingency of people out there who are looking for a “tuna salad without mayo” recipe too.

We worked on this recipe for a couple weeks at my catering company. It was always just missing something that we couldn’t put our finger on. Then one afternoon my Director of Catering, Michele, added in some feta cheese and the whole thing just came together. Incredible how just one ingredient can change a dish. We made a bunch of wraps and sent them to some of our loyal customers for feedback. The orders started rolling in the next day. This is one delicious tuna salad recipe that I have been dying to share with you. So, here it is.

TUNA SALAD WITHOUT MAYO

The idea for a tuna salad recipe without mayo came to us from a good friend who is in the definite “I hate MAYO!” camp. She came to our kitchen almost daily and would always ask if we were working on a no mayo tuna salad. We discussed it at the kitchen and decided that we would give it a shot. The idea from the beginning was to use Mediterranean flavors with olive oil, capers and Kalamata olives. The rest of the recipe we would play with and see what happened.

It took about 15 batches before we came up with this final recipe. The thing about mayo is simply that the creaminess balances out the intense tuna flavor and acts as a binder to hold everything together. We knew that we needed to add in really bright, bold flavors to make this tuna salad recipe pop. Although it has a lot of ingredients, I think that you will love the brightness and how well balanced the tuna salad is when everything comes together. You’ll never miss the mayo!