I've been talking about this recipe for a long time and eating it even slightly longer. It's pretty good. I served it to my family on Christmas Eve and it was a hit. It's also really easy and pretty cheap. It's mostly from Mark Bittman, but he'd yell at me for some of my shortcuts, so I'm just going to say it's mine. Plus, I make it for me and he doesn't. But I'll tell you where he'd do it differently.
Here's what you need for it. Olive oil (only about 2 Tbsp), 2 cans of tuna, a can of white beans, some parsley, some lemon juice, and black pepper. Mark Bittman says to use fresh parsley and real lemon juice. Fresh parsley does make it better, but it's good with dried stuff too. The dried stuff is mostly for your eyes, but you can taste it a bit. You also need some onion, preferably red.
You can get the tuna for 4/$3 at Western Beef. I tried using the more expensive white albacore kind once but liked it less. It's drier. Beans should be under $1 per can. Sometimes I use small white navy beans. I don't really care if you change what kind of beans you use every time you eat it, but white beans make it look the nicest.
First, drain and add the tuna.
Then drain and add the beans.
Add some diced red onion. When I buy a red onion, I dice the whole thing then use about this much for the tuna bean salad and put the rest in a bag in the refrigerator for next time. I use red onion for some other things, but mostly for this.
I added about 2 Tbsp of olive oil and maybe about 3 Tbsp of lemon juice here. You can't tell, so I just stirred everything up. If I were using a real lemon, I'd use the juice of half a lemon I think. You don't want lemon soup, but you do want more acid than oil.
Underneath that parsley is 10 twists of the pepper grinder. I used a heavy hand with the parsley here.
Then I stirred it up. Now it's festering in the refrigerator because it's better when the flavors meld and it's better chilled.
Eat it plain or on toast or crackers or crostini (more words for toast = more excuses for toast).
