The Simple Bread Swap For Gluten-Free Tuna Salad

If you're among the millions of people living a gluten-free lifestyle, you know just how difficult it can be. Eating out and going to dinner parties becomes challenging, not to mention gluten-free products can be costly and hard to find. Gluten-free bread is particularly expensive, and can fall flat for many eaters in terms of taste and texture. When you struggle to find options that work for you, avocado can be an excellent swap, especially when paired with tuna salad.

Avocado adds creaminess, texture, and an extra dimension of flavor to your go-to tuna salad. You can add a crunchy element with mix-ins like chopped celery, pecans, and diced apples for a delectably satisfying bite that is nutty, sweet, and savory all at once — suffice to say, you won't miss the lackluster bread. To try this swap, you can thinly slice the avocado and top with spoonfuls of tuna, or you can halve the fruit and remove the pit, filling in the indentation left behind with your tuna salad mixture. 

You can further double down on your avocado enjoyment by replacing the mayo in your tuna recipe with the creamy mashed fruit. To make lunch even easier, this hidden color code can help you determine an avocado's ripeness, and you can also get the flesh more cleanly out of its skin by picking up a grapefruit knife for smarter avocado scooping. Incidentally, avocado can also be stuffed with chicken salad and other sandwich fillings.

Plant-based bread alternatives can be convenient, economical, and delicious choices for a gluten-free diet. In addition to avocado, cucumbers, zucchini, and carrots can be great partners for tuna salad (either sliced lengthwise to imitate sandwich bread, or cut into rounds for scooping). The traditional lettuce wrap is also a go-to, and portobello mushroom caps or sliced eggplant can sandwich your tuna filling. Sliced apple is another surprisingly tasty vehicle for tuna salad, giving it that sweet/savory element that can be so delicious.

Rice cakes are another excellent base for sandwiches, and rice crackers and other non-gluten crunchy snacks are also great topped with the fish. You can try a wrap-style finish for your tuna salad by using gluten-free tortillas. From corn or cassava tortillas to almond flour and coconut wraps, options are plentiful these days. With tortillas, it would be easy to take your tuna salad wrap in a Mexican direction with some avocado, diced tomatoes, and onion mixed in.

Another way to skip the bread is to use sliced cheese as your sandwich base. A thick slice of a sturdy cheese like cheddar or Manchego can hold up under the weight of your tuna salad, perfect for gluten-free folks who want more protein or aren't the biggest fan of veggies.