Canned Tuna in Olive Oil: Top Brands and Recipes

As Suzzane Hamlin points out in her well written 1997 article for the New York Times, canned tuna is the best selling seafood in the country.  And your first reaction may be something akin to, "what, canned tuna, why don't American's buy fresh fish?"  Well, high quality fresh fish is, indeed, best but if you don't have access to a great fish market and regularly buy gifts for the owner and/or fishmonger, then your best bet is high quality canned fish.  I'm not talking about tasteless tuna packed in water, but tuna (or tonno in Italian) packed in oil, sardines that are oil or salt cured, canned oysters and clams, etc.  The aforementioned fish are prized in Italian and Spanish cultures, for example, and are often more desirable and expensive than fresh fish.

My favorite canned fish is tuna and I've been eating the Italian variety packed in olive oil since I can remember (in fact, it was the cause of much stress during lunch time at my grammar school and you can imagine the flack I received for eating "fancy food")  Tuna is a saltwater fish and the largest member of the mackerel family; the genus is Thunnus with 13 species or so. Most canned tuna is made from albacore, yellowfin, skipjack, and/or bluefin.

My favorite way to consume canned tuna in olive oil is as a side to a lazy weekend lunch or dinner, dressed simply with oregano, salt, pepper, and some fresh olive oil.  I also like to make a modified tuna salad with parsley, diced tomato, salt, pepper and oregano.  I suppose you could add mayonnaise to canned tuna in olive oil but that's the equivalent of wearing a raincoat over an Armani suit (why would you cover up an excellent, and high quality, product with a useless condiment?).  Mayonnaise has it's place, but not when it comes to high quality tuna.  Lastly, don't forget the wonderful Tuna Nicoise (click for my recipe) and our Pesto Tuna recipe.