Good morning. Canned tuna is one of our all time favorite ingredients that we use and talk about a lot. Below are some practical tips to take full advantage of it at home.

INGREDIENT DEEP DIVE 🍳

Canned tuna

_{📷: Epicurious}

What is it?

Cooked tuna preserved in a can, usually packed in either water or oil. It’s one of the most reliable protein shortcuts you can keep around—cheap, shelf-stable, and endlessly flexible.

Common varieties include albacore (often labeled “white”) and skipjack (usually labeled “light”)
Found in every grocery store, from bargain brands to high-end, olive-oil-packed options
Fully cooked and ready to eat with minimal prep required

You might think of it as pantry survival food, but we’ve become obsessed with it as a staple for quick meals.

What’s its flavor?

Taste & aroma: Mildly briny, savory, gently fishy (more so with “light” tuna than “white” albacore)

Texture: Flaky and firm; oil-packed tuna can be unctuous

Physical: Lean and protein-forward

Why should you buy some?

Canned tuna is one of the highest payoff proteins you can own. It turns nothing into something, fast. It’s inexpensive, widely available, and lasts for years in the pantry.

It plays well with bold flavors (mustard, capers, olives, hot sauce) and subtle ones alike (mayo, lemon, herbs) Even with zero planning, discovering a can in your pantry can be combined with other leftover ingredients to make a high protein meal.

Our favorite dishes to make:

Classic tuna salad (mayo or olive oil, mustard, lemon, celery & onion, herbs)
Tuna melt with sharp cheese and good bread
A simple dressed salad boosted with chunks of tuna for protein
Pasta with tuna, garlic, chili flakes, and olive oil
Rice bowls with tuna, soy sauce, sesame oil, and scallions

Check these out & more on our app.

Buying guide — what’s the best tuna to buy?

Tuna in water makes a cleaner, lighter salad. Tuna packed in oil adds richness with slightly better texture. Look for sustainably caught brands (line or pole caught) if possible.

“Solid” tuna will have more intact filets with bigger pieces, while “Chunk” tuna will be more broken up. “White” tuna is albacore, and has a milder flavor, while “Light” tuna is skipjack, and has a stronger flavor.

Common label examples:

Solid White: Larger, intact pieces with mild flavor (often more premium)
Chunk Light: Broken up flakes with a fishier, stronger aroma (often more economical)

We go into all of these terms in this deep dive. Experiment to find your favorite, or even mix a few different cans to get the best flavors and textures of both (as mentioned below).

RESOURCE RECS ✅

Tuna salad testing

On the Cook Well channel, Ethan broke down all the different canned tuna terms, then used a blend of two to make an optimized tuna salad. Follow along in the video for the recipe, or check out the written tuna salad framework in the app:

Let’s Cook!

READER Q&A 🧠

Avoiding grainy melted cheese?

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Question: “Why do melted cheese and cheese sauces sometimes turn grainy or oily?” - Hunter B.

Answer: Cheese is a mix of fat, water, and milk proteins. When heated gently, those components stay suspended and creamy. But if the heat is too high, the fat separates from the proteins. That’s when you see oily pools and gritty texture.

Here are the most common culprits:

Too much heat → proteins tighten up and squeeze out fat
Aged cheeses → less moisture, more prone to breaking
No stabilizer → nothing holding fat and water together
Adding cheese too quickly to a recipe → uneven melting & heating

For queso or mac & cheese, a traditional roux can help emulsify liquid and cheese, but it makes for a grainier end result and won’t always get you a perfectly smooth sauce — especially with sharper, aged cheeses.

If you want ultra-creamy results, use a modern emulsifier:

A cornstarch slurry or gel is a simple, homemade stabilizer
A sprinkle of sodium citrate (the emulsifier in American cheese) keeps everything silky, available online or in specialty stores.
Or, more practically, add ~25% processed American cheese to a more flavorful cheese, which will add enough sodium citrate to smooth out your homemade queso or cheese sauce.

Ethan tested this in the mac & cheese science video and found that even small additions of American cheese dramatically improves smoothness — without making the sauce taste like stadium nachos.