25 Terrific Tuna Recipes, From Casual to Elegant

Tuna is a wonderful foundation for a host of tasty appetizers, sandwiches, salads, and entrées. At its simplest, jarred or canned tuna is a great pantry staple that lends itself to easy-to-pull-together dishes like tuna melts and Spanish-style pasta salad . Succulent tuna steaks are perfect for searing; sushi-grade steaks make for excellent raw preparations such as tartare and tiradito. Whether you're looking for a new lunch idea or planning a party menu, you're sure to find a winning recipe within this collection of delicious tuna dishes.

Italian Tuna Salad

This bright, balanced Roman-style tuna salad combines oil-packed jarred tuna, sun-dried tomatoes, red onions, juicy Castelvetrano olives, and celery, all tossed in a lemony honey-mustard dressing. This recipe is a perfect example of how a handful of pantry ingredients can become a meal that sings. It all comes together in 20 minutes.

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Tuna Tartare with Ginger Oil, Wasabe, and Sesame Seeds

For his elegant, ultraflavorful tuna tartare, chef Eric Ripert infuses oil with ginger, then combines it with diced sushi-grade tuna, cilantro, jalapeño, wasabi, sesame seeds, scallion, and lemon juice. It's topped with tomato, more lemon juice and cilantro, and an extra drizzle of ginger oil, then served with potato chips.

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Tuna Tiradito with Ají Amarillo Leche de Tigre

Tiradito is a raw fish preparation that features sashimi-style cuts topped with an acidic, flavorful sauce right before serving. It's a style of ceviche that's arisen thanks to the presence of Japanese immigrants in Peru, who have influenced Peruvian cuisine over the centuries. In this version, raw sashimi-grade tuna is draped in a sauce of lemon juice, orange juice, chiles, and ají amarillo chiles.

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Tuna-Avocado Ceviche with Salsa Macha

Salsa macha stops you in your tracks as soon as you taste it. It's olive oil. It's toasted smoky chiles. It's toasted nuts and seeds. It's fried garlic. The sum of all these delicious parts is a crunchy salsa that tastes amazing on pretty much anything it touches. When you add a couple of spoonfuls to cubed raw fish, salsa macha is a game changer that transforms an everyday ceviche into an extraordinary dish.

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Seared Tuna with Soy and Red Chiles

Soy sauce, sesame oil, scallion, garlic, and dried chiles are combined with chicken stock to make an intense and delicious sauce for the seared tuna. Sautéed spinach or broccoli rabe tossed with a touch of soy sauce and a sprinkling of sesame seeds would be a delicious accompaniment.

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Tuna Croquettes

These irresistibly crispy bites transform a grazing board into a hearty supper; a drizzle of honey takes them over the top. Begin frying the breaded croquettes immediately after removing them from the freezer to help them hold their shape.

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Tuna Melts with Pickled Chicories

Pickled chicories amp up this tuna melt, a lunchtime classic, and are a great use for leftover mixed chicories. The pickles can add a pop of tangy sweetness to salads or be served as a condiment with grilled or roasted meats.

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​​Spanish-Style Pasta Salad with Tuna and Marinated Tomatoes

Spanish pantry staples like mildly spicy and sweet piparra peppers and tangy sherry vinegar bring bold flavor to this hearty pasta salad from 2015 F&W Best New Chef Katie Button. "I love this pasta salad because it incorporates fresh summer ingredients, like tomatoes and herbs, with staples I already have on hand in the pantry," she says. "It's a perfect low-cook dish that you can make ahead in large batches and eat all week; it keeps getting better with time."

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Seared Tuna Tiradito

Chef Stephanie Izard channels her love of Peruvian cuisine to deliver inspired takes on traditional ceviche and tiradito. At Cabra, Izard dresses raw sushi-grade tuna steak with a creamy Kewpie mayonnaise-laced sauce, thinned with lime and orange juices and studded with spicy serrano chiles. For a twist, try giving the tuna a quick sear in a screaming-hot skillet to add another layer of complexity to the dish.

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Poached Tuna with Kumquats and Jalapeño

This incredibly quick and easy dish from New Orleans chef Donald Link's  Down South  cookbook features tuna steaks poached until rare in a bright, buttery sauce that's infused with tangy lime and kumquats, spicy jalapeños, and fresh mint.

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Sorghum and Albacore Tuna Salad with Preserved Lemon

Sorghum adds a pleasantly chewy bite to this simple salad from Roxana Jullapat, the co-owner and baker of Los Angeles restaurant Friends & Family. If you're going to use sorghum grains as a salad base, she advises, presoak the sorghum for at least 8 hours to get the best texture, wash the grains before cooking to remove extra starch, and cook them with abundant water, like pasta.

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Tuna Burgers with Ginger-Lemon Mayonnaise

Cilantro, ginger, and soy sauce are mixed with sushi-grade tuna for these bright, fresh fish burgers from grill expert Steven Raichlen. Use sushi-quality tuna for these burgers, so you can serve them medium rare. The cucumber salad and the ginger-lemon mayonnaise keep the flavors in this burger light.

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Sesame-Crusted Tuna with Ginger Cream

Hosea Rosenberg created this quickly seared tuna recipe in 2001, when he was head chef at Boulder's Dandelion restaurant. It immediately became his dad's favorite dish. He spikes the ginger cream with spicy sriracha.

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Spicy Tuna Sushi "Biscotti"

At Sushi Note in Sherman Oaks, California, chef Kiminobu Saito offers wine-friendly bites like sushi biscotti, crispy thin cakes of fried sushi rice with toppings like spicy tuna or miso-basted eggplant.

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Seared Tuna Steaks with Citrusy Soy Sauce

A former Greek philosophy professor, Abe Schoener of The Scholium Project in Suisun Valley, California, has a cult following for his experimental methods. One of Schoener's famous wines is The Prince in His Caves, a Sauvignon Blanc he ferments on its skins, then ages in oak. Former wine director John Locke thinks the luscious, funky wine is best with funky flavors, like in the citrusy soy sauce here.

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Mustard-Seared Tuna with Shallot Cream

When he was cooking at Ten Minutes by Tractor, Australian chef Stuart Bell's French-inflected dishes showcased the Mornington winery's stellar Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs. Here, Dijon mustard gives a nod to Burgundy, while the eggplant-olive relish references Provence.

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Atún Encebollado 
(Tuna Smothered in Onions)


Despite its 3,000-year history of catching wild bluefin tuna, Spain's tuna culture has largely been limited to canned and salted tuna products. This luscious dish, a staple of southern Spain, is one of the exceptions.

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Empanadillas Gallegas

Chef Katie Button's handheld versions of empanada Gallega, the large savory pie from Galicia, Spain, are stuffed with tuna, hard-boiled eggs, and chopped olives.

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Fresh Tuna and Butter Lettuce Wraps with Yuzu Ponzu

This recipe by star chef Emeril Lagasse is from the 2007 Food & Wine Classic in Aspen.

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Creamy Tuna Noodle Cazuela

Jarred piquillo peppers and imported canned tuna from Spain add an Iberian twist to the classic American tuna casserole, making it more elegant but keeping it as simple and quick as the original.

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Seared Tuna with Chimichurri Sauce and Greens

Here, chef Eric Ripert serves this thinly sliced tuna alongside mounds of mesclun, both dressed with chimichurri sauce.

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Tuna Tacos with Onions

Chef Aarón Sanchez makes a quick, vinegary, super-crunchy red onion pickle to accompany his fresh tuna tacos. It's lovely with the warm, soft tortillas. To bump up the flavors of the tacos even more, he adds a dash of hot sauce and a healthy squirt of fresh lime juice.

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Grilled Tuna with Fried Manchego

Chef Jose Garces serves seared tuna alongside deep-fried cheese croquettes. For this easy version, we skip the croquettes and instead just bread and pan-fry small slices of Manchego cheese until crisp on the outside and oozing on the inside.

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Fresh Tuna Salad with Avocado

Nan McEvoy created this salad after falling in love with the incredible olive oil-poached tuna prepared by her friend Paul Bertolli, the former chef at Oliveto's in nearby Oakland. McEvoy uses albacore tuna here, but any fresh tuna will do. In addition to spooning the salad into avocado halves, she also uses it as a sandwich filling and a topping for crostini.

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Butter Bean, Tuna, and Celery Salad

Big, creamy butter beans give a tuna and celery salad terrific heartiness. The salad would also be delicious spooned over slices of warm grilled country bread.

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