10 Simple Dips That Start With A Can Of Tuna

I'm a former chef and restaurateur, and over the years I've cranked out dips and spreads in quantity for both catering and in-house dining. But long before I ever set foot in a commercial kitchen I was the main cook in my own home, and that's been an equally powerful influence on my attitude toward food.

During the years when my kids were small, I worked at relatively low-paying jobs, and my then-wife was a stay-at-home mom. Making our grocery budget work was a challenge at times, and it gave me a deep appreciation for the virtues of inexpensive, versatile ingredients like canned tuna. When entertaining guests, a simple can or two of tuna can be turned into a number of tasty dips to liven up the party without breaking the bank. Here are 10 simple tuna-based dips to get you started, and to help inspire your own creativity.

Tuna salad is something many of us make up regularly. Everyone has their own favorite combination, but fundamentally you need a can of tuna, some mayo or the equivalent, and maybe some finely chopped celery or green onion. I'll sometimes add a dab of good Dijon mustard to mine, as well.

While most of us lean on tuna salad as a sandwich filling (or maybe serve a scoop of it on a lettuce leaf at lunchtime), those aren't your only options. As it sits, tuna salad makes a pretty serviceable dip. If you serve it with crusty bread or sturdy crackers, you might not need to change your recipe at all, beyond maybe a garnish or two.

To serve tuna salad dip with potato chips, pita chips, or something less sturdy for dipping purposes, you may want to give it a softer texture. You can do that by adding a bit more mayonnaise than usual or opting for plain Greek yogurt or sour cream instead. The latter two options add a pleasing tang, making this simplest of tuna dips tastier.

Aside from just serving your favorite tuna salad as-is and calling it a dip, combining tuna and cream cheese may be your easiest path to party success. Cream cheese is the base ingredient for a lot of other scoopable dips, served warm or cold, so this is an absolute no-brainer as a starting point.

Seriously, the bar is pretty low as far as effort goes. You can literally soften a block of cheese, mash a can of tuna into it, and call it good. Of course, if you have the time and ingredients, you can upgrade that basic dip in any number of ways. Adding in the same extra ingredients you'd use in tuna salad (celery, pickles, green onion) will always work. Same with lightening the texture through the addition of sour cream, ranch dressing, or pickle juice.

It gets even better if you top your dip with shredded cheese and heat it in the oven or microwave, or brighten it up with colorful or flavorful add-ins. You can take a can of tuna and a block of cream cheese and riff on them any number of ways, and in fact, many of the other recipes on this list fit that description. If you're stuck for ideas, we can suggest several options for this easy cream cheese tuna dip.

Sometimes a plain ol' tuna sandwich is perfectly fine. Sometimes you want something more, and that's where tuna melts come in. They're nothing elaborate (just a mashup of a tuna sandwich and a grilled cheese), but a tuna melt is more than the sum of its parts. The filling is more flavorful when it's warmed, the grilled bread adds texture and richness, and of course, you get that pull from the melted cheese.

All of those things are surprisingly easy to replicate by turning the tuna melt from a sandwich to a dip. Start by mixing up your tuna salad as you normally would. You may want to add some cream cheese and sour cream, but those are optional. Layer the dip into a baking dish, top it with cheese, and heat it until it's bubbly. That's it, you're done! You can serve it with crackers, chips, or toasted baguette rounds, or to really nail down the "tuna melt" theme you can grill the baguette rounds with a bit of butter.

You can elevate or customize the dip to your heart's content with add-ins and upgrades. Finely chopped celery and green onions are obvious and tasty additions, as are sweet peppers. You can also think about flavorings like a good mustard, some horseradish or fresh herbs, or upgrading the dip by upgrading the cheese.

When you go to a party, there are some things you will almost always see. One of those is chicken wings, and more often than not they'll be Buffalo wings. Eventually, some unknown genius — tired of cleaning up wing bones and greasy fingerprints — hit on the idea of combining those flavors to make Buffalo chicken dip.

Well, here's a wrinkle that may not have occurred to you. Replacing the chicken with canned tuna works really, really well. You can use the same ingredients you always do, except for that one substitution. A typical recipe might call for a block of cream cheese, a cup or two of shredded cheddar, your Buffalo wing sauce of choice, and a couple of cups of shredded chicken.

As a rough rule of thumb, you'll need two 5 or 6-ounce cans of tuna per cup, once they're drained. You'll get more from chunk tuna than flaked since the can contains more tuna and less oil, broth, or water (depending on what it's packed in). Personally, I find that tuna in oil is tastier, but realistically any difference will be masked by the other flavors in your Buffalo tuna dip.

Chefs dearly love to take existing favorites and give them a novel spin. I did that a lot when I was active in the industry because it has so many advantages. For one, diners loved that combination of familiarity and novelty (a riff on an old favorite is an easier sell than an entirely new dish). It's also very pragmatic from the chef's perspective because it means getting extra mileage out of ingredients and techniques we're already using in the kitchen.

Much of that same logic is transferable to your home kitchen. So when you're spitballing ideas for tuna-based dips, start by reconsidering dips you already make — like guacamole — as potential candidates for adding tuna. That may sound like a stretch, but it's really not.

Good ol' guac is a near-universal favorite, and its rich creaminess is a perfect foil for tuna's flavor and texture. Usually, you'd use cream cheese or mayo to bring those to your tuna, but guacamole is a healthier and tastier option. Just make it as you normally would (or buy a good brand like Whole Foods' 365 guacamole, the top choice in our guacamole taste test), then break up a can of tuna and stir it in. Canned tuna adds protein and flavor, and guacamole with tuna makes an intriguing variation for your guests.

Let's take another already-popular dip and consider how we can jazz it up with tuna. This time, hummus is the one that I'll suggest you pick as a candidate for a mash-up (a very literal description for these dips, since you usually need to mash the tuna before you use it).

This is super quick and easy when you start with store-bought hummus. If you're going to make your hummus from scratch, you'll need to blitz the chickpeas in your food processor with lemon juice, garlic, tahini (sesame paste), olive oil, and salt. The proportions are up to you; some like more lemon juice while my own preference skews toward extra garlic. Once the hummus reaches a creamy texture and the flavors are balanced, you can flake your can of drained tuna and add that to it. Just a tip: If you choose tuna in olive oil, you can use that same oil in the hummus to double down on the tuna flavor.

This may sound like an odd combination at first blush, but I can assure you that garlic and lemon are great with tuna. The tahini's sesame note helps ground the combination nicely, and anyone who's had a sesame-crusted tuna steak knows that the flavor complements tuna beautifully. In fact, Ina Garten is on record with her affection for hummus as a spread on her tuna sandwiches. So give it a shot, because it's surprisingly good.

Plain yogurt is one of my personal staples. I eat it as-is, I drain it to make homemade labneh (yogurt cheese), and I use it in cooking and baking. During summer I'll often make up a batch of tzatziki to turn my garden's herbs and cucumbers into a light, hot-weather meal.

Like hummus, tzatziki is a well-loved dip that works beautifully with canned tuna. Seriously, if you don't believe me, try tzatziki in place of mayo in your next tuna salad sandwich to brighten its flavors. Again, it's easiest if you just buy the tzatziki, but making your own gives you fresher flavors and more control over the finished result.

All you'll need is some nice, thick Greek yogurt, about half a big cucumber, and some flavorings. Start by shredding the cuke and squeezing out as much moisture as possible. You can do that in a mesh strainer or a cloth bag, but I use a potato ricer. Then mix the cucumber with the yogurt, some lemon juice, fresh or dried mint, a splash of olive oil, and some salt (I like fresh dill in mine, too). When it's at the right consistency, and the flavors are balanced, flake the tuna and stir it in. This is a much lighter, healthier dip than most of the others on this list, ideal for serving on hot summer nights or as a change of pace when the rest of your dips and finger foods are rich and heavy.

I'm going to turn this list in a more "chef-y" direction now, but bear with me. One of the great glories of Mediterranean food (and there are many) is tapenade, a thick and intensely flavorful paste made from olives.

It's not hard to make, by any means. Start by pureeing the olives in your food processor (usually black olives, but you can use green ones instead), then add capers, a couple of anchovy fillets or a squeeze of anchovy paste, a splash of lemon juice for brightness, and enough olive oil to make a smooth paste. Garlic isn't a canonical ingredient, but I add some to mine because I like garlic. Once the tapenade is finished, flake your can of tuna and add it to the mixture. It adds protein, and it softens the impact of the tapenade's bold, concentrated flavors.

Serve this combination with small dippers like bagel chips, or with juicy vegetables like cucumbers and sweet peppers, because it's intense. Alternatively, instead of setting it out as a bowl of dip, you can spread this one on small toast rounds and serve it as a canape with a good flake of tuna on top and a fresh herb garnish. Either way, tuna and fresh-made tapenade are a match made in party heaven.

Bacon is often used as a flavoring ingredient on other meats, but have you ever eaten meat that was flavored with fish? You may not think so, but you probably have. Fish sauce is a standard "umami" ingredient in Southeast Asian cooking and good ol' Worcestershire sauce – often splashed on steaks and burgers — is actually a Westernized fish sauce with tart and peppery flavors added.

One Italian dish is an especially famous example of this notion. It's called "vitello tonnato," literally "veal with tuna." The veal is braised, then served cold and thinly sliced with the mayonnaise-like tuna sauce. Again, it looks fancy and sophisticated but the sauce is surprisingly easy to make. Toss a couple of cans of tuna into your blender, add a few hard-boiled egg yolks, and then bring the flavor with a spoonful of capers, a few anchovy fillets, and some lemon juice. Buzz these to a paste, then drizzle in olive oil until it reaches a smooth and creamy consistency.

The pale and velvety sauce works really well as a dip, and you can serve it with almost anything. It's great with crackers, chips, or anything bread-like, and also with raw or roasted vegetables. You can even let it do double duty by setting it near a tray of deli meats and rolls, so people can drizzle tuna sauce over cold sliced meats in the original Italian fashion.

Confession time: I'm a big fan of beans and eat them a lot, which admittedly doesn't make me the best of companions for a long road trip. There's a strong case to be made that we should all be eating more beans. Not only are they tasty, they're nutritional powerhouses with a ton of health benefits. Better yet, they're also as sustainable a protein source as you'll find.

Not gonna lie, I like keeping canned beans around for their convenience (most of the myths about canned beans are unjustified), and especially for quick dips. I'm especially fond of cannellini and other white beans, which make a great dip. I make mine with garlic, lemon juice, and a healthy pinch of salt, all pureed together in my food processor and then finished with chopped fresh herbs from my garden. It's pale and creamy, and the fresh herbs give it a pleasant pop of color. Adding tuna to a dip like this one is a no-brainer, and couldn't be easier. All you need to do is drain the can and drop the tuna into your food processor along with the other ingredients.

I'll cheerfully concede that this dip bears a family resemblance to hummus, but its use of white beans and fresh herbal flavors creates a very different impression. Subjectively it feels lighter than the earthier hummus, and it's an equally quick dip to make with beans from your pantry.