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I love tuna salad, which is strange because I don’t love most of the things in tuna salad. The only tuna salad I eat that I don’t make is from Jimmy John’s.
The truth is, I don’t eat much fish and I don’t like mayonnaise. I think if I hadn’t grown up with my mom making tuna, I wouldn’t like it as much as I do now. I don’t eat it often, but interestingly enough, I crave it at pivotal times in my life.
For example, the first thing I wanted to eat after I gave birth to my daughter was a tuna melt (you’re not supposed to eat tuna while you’re pregnant, so I’d been craving it). Then every month after I finish filming my TV show, I always get a #3 tuna sandwich from Jimmy John’s (with extra tuna), along with salt & vinegar potato chips and a root beer. (Don’t ask me why it has to be that combination).
Gluten-Free Jimmy John’s Tuna Salad Copycat Recipe
One on such day while I was eating my after-show tuna sub, I noticed warehouse club-sized bottles of soy sauce on the shelves at Jimmy John’s. If you’ve eaten at JJ, you know there are not many items on the menu that don’t involve deli meat. Then I finally saw them use the soy sauce when making their tuna salad.
The worker wouldn’t share their recipe with me, but it didn’t matter. There aren’t that many ingredients in tuna salad to begin with, so I made the assumption that the soy sauce was being used as the salt component.
Since I’m trying to avoid gluten now, spending that much money on tuna wrapped in lettuce didn’t make sense. So I set out to try to duplicate the taste of Jimmy John’s at home.
Asian Tuna Salad Twist
They key in difference in my recipe and the JJ version is that I use tamari to make it gluten-free. Tamari is basically gluten-free soy sauce. I also use Cupie mayo, which you can find at an Oriental market. Feel free to use regular mayonnaise, just make sure you read the ingredients to make sure there are no additives that contain gluten.
Gluten-Free Tuna Salad Ingredients
- 1 can of albacore tuna in water (drained)
- 1 stick celery, diced thin
- ¼ onion (white or red), diced
- 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 1.5 tablespoons tamari
- 1/8 teaspoon celery salt
- Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Combine all ingredients in a bowl until mixed thoroughly.
If I’m only eating this for lunch, I can finish it all. However, it could easily serve two people.
I also found this recipe online, but it’s not gluten-free.
