Tuna Noodle Salad
"Very tasty. A lot of pasta salads like this are long on mayonnaise and short on flavor. This one is very satisfying. Using the oil may seem risky, but it's the secret behind the deep flavor. A summertime favorite."
photo by Muffin Goddess
- Ready In:
- 20mins
- Ingredients:
- 7
- Serves:
-
8
ingredients
- 1 lb macaroni, precooked (elbows)
- 1 large stalk celery, diced finely
- 1 large red pepper, diced
- 3 ounces glass packed roasted red peppers, diced
- 1 (13 ounce) can solid white tuna, well broken up (with oil)
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- salt and pepper
directions
- Cook elbows.
- Break-up tuna with a fork into small bits.
- Mix tuna and all other ingredients into the pasta.
- Refrigerate for several hours.
- Is much better on the second day.
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Reviews
-
Couldn't bring myself to use (or even buy) tuna packed in oil, so made a change to one in water, which I always have onhand! Except for that, though, I did follow the recipe & we were very happy with the resulting salad, half of which was shared with a neighbor couple! Thought the flavor from the roasted peppers was a nice addition! Thanks for sharing the recipe! [Made & reviewed for one of my adoptees in the current Pick A Chef] -
This was a nice change of pace from our usual macaroni salad. Due to pantry item availability, I had to make a few changes (keeping with the recipe as closely as possible, though). I thought I had some elbows, but no dice, so I used the next closest pasta cut I had -- whole grain rotini. I used orange bell pepper in place of the red (there was enough red with the roasted red peppers already anyhow). I didn't have any plain old-fashioned mayo on hand, so I used a mixture of Japanese Kewpie mayo and Hellmann's mayonesa instead (yeah, yeah, I always buy the weird stuff, lol). Good call with using the tuna packing oil in the salad -- it adds good flavor, and it didn't make the salad oily at all. If I tried it without seeing the recipe, I never would've guessed that the oil-packed tuna was undrained. I sprinkled a bit of lemon pepper on my portion, too, which was very nice. My only complaint that kept this from being 5 stars was that I kind of felt like it was missing something. I think I was looking for the sharp/salty element that is always in my mom's macaroni salad (chopped onion and sliced green olives), so a bit of chopped onion probably would've done the trick for me. Very good salad, nonetheless, well enjoyed by all three other people that I shared it with, too. Thanks for posting! Made for PAC Spring '10 :)
Tweaks
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This was a nice change of pace from our usual macaroni salad. Due to pantry item availability, I had to make a few changes (keeping with the recipe as closely as possible, though). I thought I had some elbows, but no dice, so I used the next closest pasta cut I had -- whole grain rotini. I used orange bell pepper in place of the red (there was enough red with the roasted red peppers already anyhow). I didn't have any plain old-fashioned mayo on hand, so I used a mixture of Japanese Kewpie mayo and Hellmann's mayonesa instead (yeah, yeah, I always buy the weird stuff, lol). Good call with using the tuna packing oil in the salad -- it adds good flavor, and it didn't make the salad oily at all. If I tried it without seeing the recipe, I never would've guessed that the oil-packed tuna was undrained. I sprinkled a bit of lemon pepper on my portion, too, which was very nice. My only complaint that kept this from being 5 stars was that I kind of felt like it was missing something. I think I was looking for the sharp/salty element that is always in my mom's macaroni salad (chopped onion and sliced green olives), so a bit of chopped onion probably would've done the trick for me. Very good salad, nonetheless, well enjoyed by all three other people that I shared it with, too. Thanks for posting! Made for PAC Spring '10 :)
