Mediterranean Tuna Salad with Olive Dressing

This is the elegant magazine version. They used garnish!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: The fabulous Kaye Barley is going to be blogging here on Sunday, our usual recipe day, so I'm going to share a dinner suggestion with you today. I ran across this in  BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS magazine and tore it out, thinking it would be fancy to serve to guests. However, when  generous neighbor gave us a huge bowl filled with fingerling potatoes and wax beans, it was like a message from the culinary gods. And I'm so glad I listened! 

It turns out Mediterranean Tuna Salad with Olive Dressing has all the elements I look for in a recipe: it's cheap (but doesn't look it) extremely fast and easy, and, important for cooking when it's 90 degrees out, only requires ten minutes of boiling (so it won't heat up the kitchen to unbearable levels. Oh, and most importantly, it's delicious. I doubled the recipe, which made enough for three hungry adults with two lunch-sized servings left over for the next day. Here it is:

Mediterranean Tuna Salad with Olive Dressing (double portion)

2 lb. tiny new potatoes, halved if large (but if you use fingerlings like I did, you don't have to do any slicing at all!)

2 lb. fresh green beans (I used wax beans.) You only have to snap off the thick stem end - again, no cutting or other snapping involved. Super quick.

2 16 oz cans of white tuna (those are the big cans. It would take 6 little cans to get the same amount.)

Dressing:

1 cup green olives with pimentos. (The standard jar makes one cup. You could go all fancy, I suppose, but I used one  of those no-name brand jars of cocktail olives, and it turned out fine.)

6 Tbsp good olive oil (1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp) Use the good stuff, it does make a difference.

2 Tbsp spicy Brown mustard. I only had spicy sweet-hot and used that instead, and it was quite nice.

2 Tbsp lemon juice

2 tsp sugar

Throw the potatoes into water and bring it to  boil.  Let them boil for 5 minutes, then add the beans and boil for another 5 minutes. You want the veggies to be just fork-tender.


Meanwhile, dump all the dressing ingredients in a blender or food processor, blend or process until they're smooth and creamy.

Combine potatoes, beans, and flaked tuna (try to leave it in bite-sized chunks.) Add the dressing.


That's it! The original recipe picture clearly shows the meal plated individually, with the dressing drizzled over artistically arranged beans and potatoes. But really, who does that? I tossed it all together in  big salad bowl. It wasn't as pretty, but it was super easy and boy did it taste good.

To be fair, this is also day-after leftovers.