White Bean and Tuna Salad

This salad is so yummy! It's also healthy and cheap, so if you're looking for something to make that's yummy, healthy, AND cheap, this recipe is great! It's another recipe from Mel's Kitchen Cafe. I love that site!


Ingredients:
1/2 cup chopped red onions
The zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 (5 or 6-ounce each) cans of tuna
2 (15-ounce each) cans of Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
A few splashes of Tabasco sauce or other hot sauce
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Salt and olive oil to taste

Directions:
In a small bowl, sprinkle some of the lemon juice over the chopped onions while you prepare the other ingredients. This will take some of the oniony edge off the onions.

Drain the tuna and put it into a large bowl. Add the beans to the tuna and gently stir to combine. Add the onions, parsley, black pepper, lemon zest and lemon juice and mix to combine. Add Tabasco or hot sauce to taste. If the salad needs more acid, add a little more lemon juice. If the salad seems a little dry, add a little bit of olive oil. Add salt to taste.

Serve chilled or at room temperature. The salad develops great flavor if tightly covered and refrigerated for a couple hours, or up to a day, before serving. Serve with crackers, lightly toasted bread, lettuce cups/leaves, fresh vegetables, etc.


Here's the thing--I had to modify the recipe just a bit. We didn't have any Tabasco or hot sauce, so we didn't use any of that. I'm sure it would taste better with it though. We had all the other ingredients which is why I decided to try it, but of course some of the ingredients were of a different form. We used minced onion instead of fresh onion. It would probably taste a lot better with fresh onion! Also, 1/2 a cup of parsley seems like a lot! I just used 1/4 cup. We didn't have fresh parsley, just a little jar of freeze-dried parsley which says it's as close to fresh as you can get. :) So I used 1/4 cup of that and it still seemed like a lot. I also just used lemon juice from a bottle instead of the zest and juice of a lemon. It's all that we had. So that's how I made mine! It was still really good, and I agree that it does taste better after it sits for a while. :) It's delicious with bread, and I'm sure it would taste really good with lettuce!

And here is a commercial on tuna, for your entertainment: