The Salty Addition Your Tuna Salad Deserves

Boring tuna salad? No, thank you. To spice up your lunch, combine the crunchy, rich, salty taste of bacon with your standard tuna salad for an exciting take on the classic. There are many ways to incorporate bacon into your favorite recipe, and its smoky flavor provides a vibrant pop to tuna's somewhat bland taste. How you cook bacon is up to you, but the oven produces the most even crisping job and lets you batch-cook the strips for convenient use throughout the week.

For starters, you can place thick bacon slices – broken into pieces just big enough to scoop up with a fork — on top of your tuna salad. They provide a crisp and chewy texture that counteracts the creaminess of the tuna and mayonnaise. Another option is to fold cooked, bite-size chunks into the tuna, creating pockets of crunch and meaty flavor throughout the salad. Or, if you're short on time and don't want the hassle of cooking bacon yourself, sprinkle in some bacon bits to impart the smoky, decadent taste without the effort. Just make sure you use a product made of real pork, as that's not what your average grocery store bacon bits are made of.

You can capitalize on the irreplaceable texture and rich taste of bacon by adding one seasoning to your tuna salad: everything bagel. This seasoning blend typically features garlic, onion, and sesame seeds, which are deliciously savory and crunchy. It incorporates a punch of umami and nutty flavor into your tuna, which pairs well with the rich porky notes.

Another simple way to upgrade your tuna salad is to add apples, and you can make it sweet and salty by combining the bacon with the diced fruit. Go with a Honeycrisp apple for its juicy crunch and sweet honey notes, giving bright pops of flavor that balance the salty, smoky bacon. If you're looking to spice things up, stir in pungent jalapeños and zesty red onions for a fresh take that's bursting with heat, creating an explosion of different flavors in one bowl.

Prefer your tuna salad on bread? Pair the fish and chopped bacon with mayonnaise and diced tomatoes, then top off with fresh lettuce for a BLT-like twist on the classic tuna salad sandwich. Or, use the BLT inspiration in another way by toasting your bread and layering it with the canned fish; juicy tomato; slices of mouthwatering bacon; and crunchy lettuce for a myriad of textures. If you want a more tangy taste, swap mayo for Greek yogurt to cut the fattiness of the bacon, and stir in some capers for a briny, extra zesty tuna salad.