Give Boring Tuna Salad A Hint Of Sweetness

Although tuna is among the premier tinned fish varieties you should have in your pantry, the salad it is often destined to become can be quite bland. At its most basic, you've got the cooked-to-white fish that tastes like next to nothing and the mayo that might have a hint of lemon at best, but mostly just exists to hold it all together with creamy zeal. Anything extra is a necessary accessory. Your entry-level spices, salt and pepper, enhance it all a bit while adding a passing heat, but it's all still pretty perfunctory. Unless, instead, you turn it into a delightful choose-your-own-adventure dish, where you can add all manner of mix-ins catered to your very taste. And if it's a sweet tooth kind of day, another common pantry ingredient can give your tuna salad that satisfying quality with just a few shakes: balsamic vinegar.

Balsamic vinegar (not to be confused with vinaigrette!) adds a subtle but full-bodied sweetness to tons of foodstuffs. You'll find it used to glaze fried chicken wings, drizzled over fruit or cheese, and paired with excellent olive oil for dipping fresh baked bread. And even just a little bit splashed into tuna salad brings its same signature pizzazz to your otherwise basic everyday sandwich.

For tuna salad sandwich purposes, you should think of both the balsamic vinegar and the mayo as wet ingredients. Although the latter is a lot denser, either can render the whole dish soggy if you use too much. So you must recalibrate your ingredients, rather than simply incorporate the balsamic vinegar with your usual proportions.

Let's say you typically add about 2 tablespoons of mayo to each can of tuna. When combining the condiment with balsamic vinegar, start with just 1 tablespoon of mayo, incorporating balsamic vinegar by the teaspoon to taste. You can add a bit more of both or either as you perfect the flavor and consistency. You'll also want to hold back on any other sweeteners. Balsamic vinegar is made from grape must, a concentrated form of the sugary fruit. Chopped dill pickles, for example, are a suitable salad mix-in, as they bring crunch and acidity. But a typically sweeter relish will begin to veer into candy territory. That still leaves room for mellow standards like celery and perky herbs, giving you a balanced, flavor-packed tuna salad with a hint of sweetness.