Chickpea Tuna Salad
Protein-packed and delicious, this Healthy Chickpea Tuna Salad is an easy recipe that's super versatile and perfect for sandwiches, lettuce wraps, on crackers, and more! You'll love this no-fuss recipe that comes together in about 15 minutes. Great for meal prep, lunches, dinners, and snacks.
Equipment
- 1 Potato Masher or use the back of a fork (you can use a food processor but just gently pulse the chickpeas, don't puree them.
- 1 Blender to make the tofu mayo, not necessary if using store-bought vegan mayo
- 1 Medium or Large Bowl
Ingredients
Chickpea Tuna Salad
- 1.5 cups or 1 can no-salt-added chickpeas, other cooked white beans will work too but chickpeas have more texture
- 1/2 cup tofu mayo, see below for recipe, or use store bought vegan mayo if you're okay with oil
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice, for more seafood flavor, try caper or pickle juice, or pickle relish (NOT sweet relish)
- 1½ tablespoons dulse flakes, if you're new to dulse flakes, use less and add more as needed. You can also use a crumbled nori sheet or ume plum vinegar. If you dislike seaweed, you can use a little salt, yellow or white miso paste, or extra lemon juice.
- 1 teaspoon granulated onion
- 1 teaspoon granulated garlic
- 1 rib celery, finely chopped
- 1-2 green onions, finely chopped, or use very finely chopped red onion (about 1/4 cup)
Tofu Mayo
- 16 ounces firm tofu, see notes for using other tofu or a substitution for tofu altogether
- ¼ - ⅓ cup unsweetened soy milk, or any unsweetened, unflavored non-dairy milk
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar, rice vinegar works fine too, but I like the sweetness from apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon granulated garlic
- 1 teaspoon granulated onion
- 2 teaspoons white or yellow miso paste, to taste
Instructions
- Make the tofu mayo: If using homemade tofu mayo, blend up those ingredients now until smooth. Taste and adjust any seasonings as needed and blend again if you do add anything. Pour into a jar and refrigerate until needed (up to 5 days).
- Mash the chickpeas: Start by mashing your rinsed chickpeas in a medium or large bowl. You can just use the back of a fork or you can use a potato masher which does make it go a little faster. If you want to use a food processor, that's fine, but just pulse it because it's very easy to puree the chickpeas which ruins some of the texture in the chickpea tuna salad.
- Add veggies: Finely chop the celery and green onion (or red onion) and add them to the bowl with the mashed chickpeas.
- Add remaining ingredients: Add the tofu mayo, lemon juice, dulse flakes, granulated onion, and granulated garlic to the bowl.
- Mix: Mix with a fork until well combined. Taste and adjust any of the seasonings as needed.
- Serving: You can do anything you want with this chickpea tuna salad. I love to serve it in butter lettuce leaves or romaine heart leaves, but it's also great in collard wraps (recipe coming soon!), regular wraps, sandwiches, on pasta, or on crackers. Also great on top of a leafy green salad!
- Storage: Store vegan tuna salad in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Video
Notes
- Tofu Substitutions: If you don't want to make my tofu mayo (you could definitely use 1½ cooked and drained white beans or 1 cup soaked and drained raw cashews or raw sunflower seeds instead of tofu!), store bought vegan mayo will work. Just keep in mind that it does have oil.
- Miso Paste:This is to replace the salt in the recipe, but I also love the little hint of umami flavors. Per Dr. Michael Greger of NutritionFacts.org, the soy in miso has a protective effect so the sodium in miso paste will not affect us negatively. Please feel free to omit or use a pinch of salt if that is what you prefer.
- Don't Love Fishy Flavors? Try making this into a vegan chicken salad by just leaving out the dulse flakes.
- Add other flavors and textures: You could add other things to this vegan tuna salad like chives and/or dill, halved grapes or raisins, nuts like sliced almonds or chopped walnuts, seeds like raw pumpkin seeds or hemp seeds, or other veggies.
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Add other vegetables: Speaking of veggies, you can make this a more veggie-packed dish easily by adding finely chopped veggies like carrots, broccoli, bell peppers, etc. Just remember that you might need a bit more tofu mayo, lemon juice, and seasonings to account for the larger volume of chickpea salad.
Nutrition
Calories: 140kcalCarbohydrates: 22gProtein: 9gFat: 3g
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!