Tuna, Avocado & Cucumber Salad over Greens
A creamy no-mayo tuna salad bound with mashed avocado, crisp cucumber, and celery, piled over fresh spinach with a squeeze of lemon.
Why You'll Love This Recipe
Tuna bound with mashed avocado instead of mayonnaise, with cucumber and celery through it for crunch, spooned over spinach. Nothing is cooked and nothing is heated, and it is about five minutes from opening the can to sitting down with it. This is the lunch for a day that got away from you, and it works because avocado does the job mayonnaise does: it carries salt and acid into the fish and holds the whole thing together.
The lemon juice is doing two jobs at once. It seasons the avocado, which is bland on its own and wants acid more than it wants salt, and it slows the browning, because what turns cut avocado gray is oxygen and acid gets in the way. That is why this still looks like food three hours later in a lunchbox, which is not true of avocado mashed with nothing in it.
Tuna and avocado together give you protein and fat in the same bowl, which is the combination that decides whether a lunch holds you to dinner or has you hunting for something at three. The celery and cucumber are not decoration either: they keep it fresh and loose rather than dense, and they are most of the reason this eats like a salad instead of a scoop of something. Our Blackened-Style Tilapia Collard Green Wraps is the other cold fish lunch we keep coming back to.
Ingredients
- 2 cans tuna in water, drained
- 1 ripe avocado
- 1 cup diced cucumber
- 2 celery stalks, diced
- 4 cups fresh spinach
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
Instructions
- Mash the avocado with the lemon first: Mash the avocado with the lemon juice and the salt before anything else goes near it, until it is mostly smooth with a few lumps left in. The order matters: the acid gets all the way through while the avocado is still soft enough to take it, which seasons it properly and is what buys you the green color three hours later. Aim for the texture of a loose hummus rather than a puree.
- Drain the tuna properly: Press the tuna against the lid and pour off everything that runs out, then press it again and hold it until no more water beads along the rim. Canned tuna holds more water than you would think, and whatever is left behind thins the avocado into something loose and gray instead of creamy. This is the difference between a salad that sits on a fork and one that slides off it.
- Fold in the tuna and the crunch: Fold in the drained tuna, the diced cucumber, and the diced celery with a fork rather than a spoon, and stop the moment everything is coated. Overworking it turns the tuna to paste and knocks the water out of the cucumber. What you are after is distinct pieces held in something creamy, so it should look mixed and still have edges in it.
- Taste it before it leaves the bowl: Taste and adjust while it is still in the bowl. Canned tuna varies more than almost anything else in the cupboard for salt, and two brands can be a quarter teaspoon apart. If it tastes flat rather than under-seasoned, it usually wants more lemon rather than more salt, which is the same thing keeping it green.
- Plate it, greens first: Divide the spinach between two plates, drizzle the olive oil over the leaves rather than over the salad, and pile the tuna on top. Oil on the greens holds off the wilting for a while under all that acid, and it also means the last forkful of spinach tastes of something. Eat it now, or pack the two halves separately.
Variations
- Add more vegetables: shaved fennel, radish, or thin slices of celery all belong here. Anything raw and crisp holds up better than a cooked vegetable would.
- Make it sharper: stir a spoonful of grated horseradish or a little grated fresh ginger into the avocado as you mash it so it runs through the whole salad.
- Change the fish: canned salmon and canned sardines both mash in the same way, and sardines bring more omega-three fat with them.
- Add herbs and brine: chopped dill, a spoonful of capers or a little minced red onion all sharpen the avocado and keep it from tasting flat.
- Serve it differently: scoop it into endive leaves or halved cucumber boats, or spread it on a slice of dark rye instead of over greens.
Storage & Leftovers
Store the tuna and avocado mixture in one airtight container and the spinach in another, and put them together only when you sit down. Keeping them apart is not fussiness: the salad is wet and acidic, and raw spinach underneath it collapses within the hour into something nobody would have packed on purpose.
Because nothing is cooked, the clock on this one is the avocado rather than the fish. Made with the full two tablespoons of lemon and pressed flat under a lid so there is no air on the surface, it stays green and good for two days. After that it is still perfectly safe and starting to look tired, which is a different thing but the one people actually judge it on.
Keep the spinach out of the container until you eat. Anything acidic sitting on raw leaves wilts them within the hour, and a lunchbox where the salad and the greens travel together arrives as one soft mass. Two compartments, or a handful of spinach thrown in at your desk, and it holds up all morning.
Notes & Tips
- Add avocado fresh: mash the avocado just before serving so it stays green and creamy.
- Drain the tuna well: press the liquid out against the lid, because any left in the can will thin the avocado into something loose.
- Keep the greens raw and dry: the spinach is a cold bed here, not something to cook, so dry the leaves well or the dressing will slide right off.
- Leave the avocado chunky: mashing until it is completely smooth costs you the texture, so stop while there are still a few pieces holding their shape.
- Dress the greens separately: the olive oil goes on the spinach and the lemon into the avocado, which keeps the leaves from going limp under the salad.
- Eat it the day you make it: the avocado darkens and the cucumber weeps overnight, so this is one to make and eat rather than store.
Nutrition & Mindful Eating
- Tuna, avocado and the crisp vegetables are what make this work. The fish gives the salad protein and body, the avocado makes it creamy enough to hold together on a fork, and the cucumber and celery keep every bite cool.
- Canned tuna is firm, mild and savory, and it breaks into flakes that catch the avocado around them. It is dense in protein and carries omega-3 fats along with selenium and B12.
- A ripe avocado mashed with a fork turns silky and coats everything it touches, bringing monounsaturated fat, fiber and potassium. That fat is also what lets the vitamins A and K in the greens be absorbed at all.
- Raw spinach underneath stays tender and faintly mineral tasting, wilting a little under the weight of the salad. It carries folate, plant iron and vitamin C, and the lemon squeezed over the top helps that iron get taken up.
- Cucumber and celery are mostly water, and that is exactly what they are here for, snapping against the soft tuna and keeping the plate refreshing. Olive oil and salt at the end round out the lemon and bring the bowl into focus.
- As you eat, feel the cool snap of the cucumber against the creamy tuna and catch the lemon coming through at the finish, then take the lunch sitting down so you can tell when you have had enough.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why avocado instead of mayo?
Standard mayo is made with eggs and seed oils, both off-limits on AIP. Avocado gives the same creamy binding with allowed whole-food fat.
Is canned tuna okay on AIP?
Plain tuna packed in water or olive oil is fine. Just check the label to avoid soy, additives, or vegetable broth.
How long does it keep?
Keep the components in separate airtight containers for up to 4 days and assemble just before serving.
Can I make it ahead?
Yes, with the parts kept apart. Make the tuna and avocado the night before with plenty of lemon in it, keep the spinach in its own container, and put the two together at the table. Mixed early, the greens wilt and the whole thing goes soft.