Recipe 8: Tuna Lima Bean Salad

Uncharacteristically, my boyfriend was more excited for this one than I was. I’ve never really been one to incorporate lots of canned/packed fish into my diet nor have I ever eaten lima beans so I went into this recipe not overly optimistic. My boyfriend, a canned tuna connoisseur and a childhood lima bean eater, won the award for this time for Most Enthused.

The Shopping Experience

After a couple recipes that were difficult to buy for, this one swooped in and made my life easy again! Everything was super easy to find in a one-stop shop at my preferred grocery store and I was actually able to use some leftover parsley from the recipe before. (See: my Fava Bean Salad post)

The Cooking Experience

This recipe was pretty quick to make since the tuna was obviously precooked and therefore only the lima beans required turning the stove on.

During the cooking process, I noticed Jamie’s lima beans looked bigger than mine as well as I had no idea how he really wanted us to chop the celery. My lima beans were green and small while Jamie’s were bigger and white. His celery seemed to be chopped into small pieces as well as showing a few that were long and thin. In the instructions though, he just said to “slice” the celery; which to me could mean anything.

I ended up just cutting a few pieces lengthwise and chopped a few smaller pieces now and then to try to emulate the celery in the book. In the future, I think I’m going to try to shave the celery with a peeler so the pieces are softer and thinner.

In an otherwise easy recipe, the only other unusual thing that stuck out to me was that the recipe asked me to drain the oil that the tuna was packed in but then also asked us to add a tablespoon of olive oil. This seemed really redundant/wasteful to me so I just used the oil that came with the tuna, as it equalled almost the same (if not a little more than) amount that they wanted us to add separately.

The Eating Experience

When I was plating this salad, I was really pleasantly surprised at how large the portion sizes were. Usually, the sizes are a bit smaller and can be eaten on their own or with another side/main meal but this salad can definitely stand on its own since it turned out to be like little tuna and celery mountains on our plates.

Generally, the whole eating experience was a pleasant surprise because I also was never really a huge fan of eating raw onions because I find them a bit too overpowering (sometimes I’ll even pick them out of my burgers if they come with them) but soaking them in vinegar really seemed to take out the intensity.

I also ate a single uncooked lima bean when I first opened the can and really didn’t like them so I was a bit nervous to eat a bunch of them but the crisping in the pan made them nice and toasted which paired really well with the tuna.

Final Thoughts

My boyfriend and I both really enjoyed this one and he actually immediately said that we should make it again sometime. I could definitely see myself eating this now during colder weather as a filling lunch and in the summer/warmer seasons for a light dinner. Since none of the ingredients are seasonal, it actually could be easily accessible all year round.

Not only was this really good and re-makeable, a huge takeaway for me was that I really liked tuna packed with olive oil. My boyfriend usually chooses to buy flaked tuna packed in water but oh man, the olive oil really changes the texture and the taste! It’s a softer and more immediately more fragrant tuna compared to its water packed counterpart.

Total estimated cook time: 15 minutes
Total actual cook time: 36 minutes