Every now and again I get a pretty strong craving for canned tuna, but there are two problems with that: 1) canned tuna has gotten quite expensive and 2) All that mayo can be pretty dangerous. So, I came up with this easy little Tuna and White Bean Salad to solve both of those problems.
What’s in Tuna and White Bean Salad
White beans (navy or great northern) are pretty neutral in flavor and the texture goes quite well with tuna, so they’re a really great way to bulk out tuna salad for cheap. Instead of using mayo to keep the salad moist and flavorful, I made a light and bright mix of lemon juice and olive oil. Green onions, freshly cracked pepper, and a little salt are all you need to make the flavors pop. This salad is simple, flavorful, filling, and can be eaten on crackers, in a pita, or just plain with a fork. It’s a great way to pack in that protein!
What Else Can I Add?
If you happen to have lemon pepper seasoning on hand, you can sprinkle that into the salad for a little extra pop or in place of the lemon juice and freshly cracked pepper. It will give the same great flavor with one little shake of the bottle! A chopped up hard boiled egg would also be an excellent and inexpensive way to bulk up this salad.
Tuna & White Bean Salad
Servings 3Ingredients
- 1 15 oz. can white beans ($0.86)
- 1 5 oz. can chunk light tuna in water ($0.89)
- 2 whole green onions ($0.19)
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice ($0.06)
- 1 Tbsp olive oil ($0.16)
- salt & pepper to taste ($0.05)
Instructions
- Pour the can of beans into a colander and rinse with cool water. Allow the excess water to drain off. Drain the can of tuna. Combine the drained beans and tuna in a bowl. Thinly slice the green onions and add to the bowl as well.
- Add the olive oil and lemon juice to the bowl, along with a light sprinkle of salt and freshly ground black pepper. Stir to combine.
- Taste the mixture and add salt, pepper, or lemon juice to your liking.
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Nutrition
How to Make Tuna and White Bean Salad – Step By Step Photos
Drain and rinse the white beans. Drain the tuna and thinly slice the green onions. Combine all three in a bowl.
Add the olive oil, lemon juice, a light sprinkle of salt, and some freshly ground black pepper. I like pepper a lot, so I added probably about 20 cranks of the pepper mill.
Stir everything together and then adjust the seasoning to your liking. You can see how the tuna and beans were kind of falling apart, which makes it not so pretty. Higher quality beans will stay intact and higher quality tuna will be more chunky than mushy. But it tasted great all the same!
This is simple and delicious dish! I’ve made this several times for its ease and protein, and I will be making again tonight. Thanks!
This is one of my go-to meal bases, I literally make it all the time. I’v struggled to get enough protein in my diet in the past, and this is a great way to help with that. Sometimes I eat it by itself, but usually I put a couple of cherry tomatoes and a bit of feta with each individual serving to bulk it out (I’ve found that if you mix those into the bowl, they both go a little weird kept in the fridge). This week I decided to shake things up a bit and added a can of chickpeas, a can of sliced black olives, and some marinated chopped artichoke hearts, and that’s really going to stretch it out for a few days!
I love this recipe! How many days can it last in the fridge?
We’d recommend up to three days.
Yum!! With some fresh spinach leaves on a low carb wrap, lunch was delicious. Thanks!
Would this work using dry navy beans? Do you know how many I should soak and cook to make the equivalent of one can? (Thank you!)
I usually get about 3 cans worth from one pound of beans. You could always cook the whole pound and then freeze the rest so they’re ready to quickly thaw and use for your next recipe. :) I’ve been pointing people to this great tutorial from Simply Recipes on how to cook dry beans.
I usually buy tuna in olive oil when it is on sale. When using that would I eliminate or lessen the amount of olive oil added? Can’t wait to try it for lunch this week. Planning to serve it on Naan bread.
I would eliminate the olive oil as you won’t need it with the canned in oil.
This popped up on my instagram feed and looked amazing, so I prepped it for my lunch this week. This is amazing. I replaced the green onion for diced red onion since I already had it on hand, and it’s fantastic. HIGHLY recommend this one. Thanks for being budget-conscious and super flavorful with all of your recipes. You’re one of my top food blogs that I read each week!
Ok, I normally hate when people post about how much they loved or hated a recipe when they changed like half the ingredients BUT I’m doing it now just to demonstrate how versatile this recipe is! I cleaned out my pantry and realized I had a ton of tuna that needed to be eaten. I only had chick peas on hand and purple onions. I mixed the tuna, chickpeas, purple onion and added the other ingredients. I also added some diced jalapeños and cumin and oh my goodness it was sooo good! I was doing it for meal prep but ended up eating half the bowl as I was packing it up! You do it every time Beth!
Forgot to leave the 5 stars!
Tasty – and I love this healthier option to a mayo-based tuna fish recipe. I found it even better with smashed chickpeas and some Trader Joes 21 Seasoning Salute.
Thanks for this delicious recipe! I know I will be eating this regularly.
This is super fresh and quick to put together. I only had red onion in so used that and some cherry tomatoes that needed using up. It was delicious, I had it with crackers to add some texture
Thank you Kate!
I blended half of the beans with the olive oil, lemon juice and some water. I then stirred in the rest of the beans and all the other ingredients. Also added some hot sauce. Made for a nice creamy sandwich filling together with some spinach and tomatoes
Hooray!
This was super yummy! I had never tried anything like this before, but I thought to myself–well I like tuna and I like beans so let me try this! I made it Sunday night and then had it over spinach for three of my lunches this week! Will absolutely be making this again and again! Thanks for sharing!
What is the single-portion size (in either cups or ounces)?
About a half cup.
This was so yummy, filling and quick to prepare. Will do again! One question where can I find the nutrional values for this recipe. Could see on the webpage?
Thanks!
Loved this! Made it for lunch last night to let the flavors blend together and that really helped. Put this over a bed of spinach leaves and it made for an excellent filling lunch! Also added minced garlic and other seasonings than salt and pepper. Would definitely recommend cheap and filling!