The 4-Ingredient Tuna Salad I Make at Least Once a Week

My weekday lunchtime routine usually goes as follows: wait until I’m hangry, microwave the oldest leftovers in the fridge, and inhale the food like a ravenous badger. It’s not a great system but it’s my system.

However, there’s at least one day a week when I’m foiled by a lack of leftovers. I’m not above eating something right out of a can or snacking on cheese and fruit and pretending it’s a ploughman’s lunch, but neither option is particularly satisfying. Usually, the lack of protein comes back to bite me around 4 p.m.

One day, driven by hunger and a craving for spicy tuna sushi rolls, I concocted a five-minute meal that turned out so well that I now make it at least once a week. I affectionately call it “spicy tuna cucumbers,” but it’s just a simple tuna salad stuffed inside a cucumber.

How To Make My 4-Ingredient Tuna Salad

Open a can of your favorite tuna and drain it. I always keep both water- and oil-packed tuna on hand, but I prefer this salad with water-packed because mayo adds all the richness it needs. Oil-packed tuna makes the salad a bit too greasy for my taste.

Mix the tuna in a bowl with as much mayo as you like. I use Kewpie mayo, but I also recommend Hellman’s or Duke’s. Then mix in a spoonful—large or small, depending on your spice tolerance—of Sriracha or chili garlic paste. Even your favorite hot sauce would be just fine. You want something to provide flavor, a little heat, and salt. Taste the tuna salad and adjust that flavor with more mayo or Sriracha.

You can eat the tuna salad at this point. Serve it with crackers or toast, turn it into a sandwich with lettuce, sliced cucumbers, and cilantro sprigs, or pile it on some microwaved frozen or shelf-stable rice and add whatever veggies or pickles you have on hand.

For my favorite way to serve this, cut a Persian cucumber lengthwise in half and use the tip of a spoon to scoop out the seeds. Pile the tuna salad inside and sprinkle it with furikake. I go classic with nori komi furikake, but your favorite furikake is almost certain to be just as delicious. You could even sprinkle some toasted and crumbled nori and sprinkle that on top. Or just go with toasted sesame seeds if you don’t have nori around.

Easy Tuna Salad Variations to Try

Sometimes when I’m extremely lazy, I won’t even bother hollowing out the cucumber. Instead, I cut it into thick slices and just serve them alongside the tuna salad. The cucumber is key because it provides the crunch you’d normally get from dicing up a celery rib and mixing it into the salad. Come to think of it, you could serve this salad with celery sticks instead of cucumber if that’s more your speed.

If you’re concerned about the lack of measurements above, don’t be! Measuring takes precious time and tuna salad is a very personal endeavor anyway—add more or less mayo, make it super spicy or very mild, go wild with the furikake or use restraint. You are the Bob Ross of tuna salad, so feel empowered to freewheel the measurements.