This chilled tuna salad is a straightforward but tasty recipe that tastes excellent on sweltering summer days. Even better, you may prepare it the night before and have it ready and chilled for when you get home from work the following day. Before we got married, my husband had never eaten this; now, during the summer, he asks for it every other week. The tuna can be replaced with chicken, which is a fantastic alternative. For aesthetic purposes, I serve it on a lettuce leaf with a variety of crackers. Cheers to that!
| Prep Time: | 25 mins |
| Cook Time: | 15 mins |
| Additional Time: | 1 hr 15 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 55 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
Ingredients
- 3 large eggs
- 2 ¾ cups macaroni
- ½ (10 ounce) package frozen English peas
- 2 (5 ounce) cans tuna, drained
- 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper
Instructions
- Place eggs in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, remove from heat, and let eggs stand in hot water for 15 minutes. Remove eggs from hot water, cool under cold running water, and peel.
- Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add macaroni pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain and rinse under cold water.
- Put frozen peas into a colander and rinse with hot water; drain well.
- Place macaroni and peas in a large bowl. Dice eggs and add to the bowl. Put tuna in the bowl, flaking it apart.
- Stir mayonnaise into tuna mixture, a little at a time, until mixture is moist but not soggy. Season with salt and pepper and mix one last time. Cover and refrigerate for a least 1 hour or overnight.
- You can also add celery, onions, green peppers, pecans, or walnuts.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 342 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 41 g |
| Cholesterol | 108 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 22 g |
| Saturated Fat | 2 g |
| Sodium | 220 mg |
| Sugars | 2 g |
| Fat | 10 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
We LOVE this recipe. I omit the eggs and add cubed cheddar cheese, diced red onion and diced dill pickle. It’s amazing how flavourful this is with only mayonnaise, salt and pepper. My son’s all-time favourite pasta salad recipe!
Thanks for all reviews! This IS a basic tuna salad, as it is meant to be. I make this salad, measurements were a guess because I dump, add, guestamate the ingredients! When I invented this salad when I was a teenager at home, we used all kinds of different vegetables. I especially like using some carrot sticks for crunch, sweetness, and color, -onion, fine diced red or green sweet pepper. My mom likes a lot of celery, -yuk!- as far as I’m concerned on that choice….but that’s my preference. I put this recipe on here for your enjoyment, and for you to make it your own! Now, my husband loves it just as it is written on here…simply and basic. That’s great for him. See, it can be adjusted as per your desire to please your palette. Enjoy as is or add, add, and add to your pleasure. Again, thanks for the reviews, interesting reading. Ann (HSTR)
Good recipe to use as a base. I didn’t measure anything out (as I didn’t want a full amount) but I did make a few changes. Miracle whip instead of mayo, slowly added til it was the right wetness. I only used the egg whites (diced). Peas to desired amount and salt and pepper to taste. I DID NOT CHILL BEFORE EATING! So if you are on a time crunch or you want to enjoy this right after it’s done, there are a few things you can do to make sure it’s not warm. Rinse cooked noodles in ice cold water. Make sure to cook the noodles al dente, as with any pasta salad. Keep the miracle whip, peas, and eggs in the refrigerator until your ready to use. If you are not precooking the eggs, soak in ice water to rapid cool. If you make these changes you can enjoy your pasta salad right after it’s mixed. ONCE REFRIGERATED… it WILL lose some flavor and wetness. So you will want to add a little extra miracle whip, salt, and pepper prior to serving. If you keep this in mind then you can be prepared and avoid that bland flavor. You can add anything you want (onions, celery, etc) but I would even consider adding some dill pickle juice to give some extra zest. Would use this recipe again
Delicious and simple. Always add onions and celery to zip up basic recipe. Everyone in family loves the peas.
Perfect for a hot summer day. I did sub. Greek fat free yogurt for 1/2 of the mayo and it worked great.
Perfect for a hot summer day. I did sub. Greek fat free yogurt for 1/2 of the mayo and it worked great.
Very popular in our house. My grandmother used to make an almost identical version of this (the recipe got lost over the years) and tasting this was a bit of old home. My wife had never had anything like this before and was absolutely head over heels. This will be an often repeated dish for us, especially in the summer months as a cool, easy meal.
this has been a family recipe since living in Hawaii when it became a state – you can use shrimp instead of canned tuna But Also add the end Top with wedges or halved (cherrie) tomatoes
It was delish! I added more miracle whip though (it wasn’t creamy enough for me)
Was looking for a recipe close to my aunt’s that she would always bring to the family potlucks. This was it… minus the mini shrimp. Just add some & Presto!! Then we ate, & it was spot on. Thanks for the memories!
Like the others, I had some add ins, celery, red bell pepper and onion. It was very good, my 12 year old took seconds and she doesn’t usually do that and then made the comment that I need to make this more often. I liked the idea of hard boiled eggs, I would have never thought of that and it really added some flavor.
This is a great basic/starter tuna mac salad recipe. You can add whatever you want to make it yours. I rated it having followed the recipe with the exception of the sweet relish. Sweet relish and tuna didn’t sound too good to me. I did use more mayonnaise because a 1/4 cup was nowhere near enough. Perhaps that was because I used rotini and not elbow or small shell pasta. After I added the things I normally use to make mac salad, it was very good.
This reminds me of a tuna salad my great aunt Dorothy would make for every family occasion. Canned peas work just fine. My hubby doesn’t like onion so onion powder is a milder substitute for us. Otherwise, no changes.
Was a good and more importantly EASY recipie that made for a great side to the main course.
I added celery and onion and instead of mayonnaise I used miracle whip…
Some of the bet recipes are those that can be built upon. In my opinion, this needed a lot more mayo than what was called for (I used 3/4 to 1 cup. I also used a packet of albacore white tuna instead of the two cans called for, a little more salt and a lot more pepper, and about 1/3 cup of dill pickle juice for a little zing. Delicious!!!!!
I made this for my husband but he wasn’t fond of the tuna, so I substituted the tuna for chicken and it came out great! I also added some onion, walnuts and a dash of paprika for a little kick and it came out delicious.
My family ate this weekly in the 80s and 90s. I didn’t know it was a “real” recipe until now! It is simple comfort food. Can be jazzed up with more veggies (if desired and in budget).
Needs onion.
I love this recipe. As a kid my friends mom made tuna macaroni salad that I loved and this recipe is exactly it! Pretty easy and taste great! simply a 5 star recipe!
Very blah.