Tuna Salad
with avocado and blood orange vinaigrette
Posted By Savita
This recipe is inspired from Tuna Salad recipe of Food Network Star Ms. Ina Garten. I have slightly altered her recipe to meet my needs by reducing the amount of lime and replacing it with sweet blood orange juice and used fresh chopped cilantro instead of scallions. Also, I used empty blood orange cups as serving containers for this awesome Tuna Salad. The sweetness of blood orange, tang from lime and meaty tuna works perfectly together and creamy avocado and slight kick of wasabi really compliments the sweet and sour flavors.
I am huge fan of Ina Garten and her cooking style. She is one of my favorite food network stars whom I always stop to watch. Especially her approach towards updating the classics is totally inspiring and matches my style of cooking. Tuna Salad is one of excellent recipe from Ina's Fish Salad Recipes Collection (aired long ago). I happened to watch it recently on a repeat telecast of her show - Barefoot Contessa. We were on meat-less diet during that time but I made a note to try her recipe once we start eating meat products again.
Beautiful piece of pan seared Tuna, isn't it? We often eat tuna with blood orange or lemon vinaigrette but I never tried Asian flavors like wasabi, soy sauce and hot sauce tabasco before. To my surprise, they really work great together. Lime juice is always slight high on acidity (for me), so I reduced the amount of lime and replaced it with my favorite sweet blood orange juice.
However, blood orange is totally optional. Ina’s Tuna Salad recipe was totally mouth-watering delicious even without Blood Orange.
I recommend using these blood orange containers if you are planning to make this salad for a party or family get together. They look fun and entertaining for a pool side party and will be easy for your guests to eat while moving around. Or if you wanna serve this salad without blood orange containers then use nice salad platter with some chips on the side.
Enjoy!!
Here are some more avocado salads and seafood from my recipe repertoire!
Ingredients
- 6-8 Blood Orange (for making cups to serve Tuna salad or just use juice of 2 blood oranges in vinaigrette.)
- 2 Avocado (medium ripe Hass Avocados, diced)
- 2 lbs Tuna (fresh Tuna cut into 1 inch thick steaks)
- 4 tbsp Olive Oil (plus extra for brushing)
- 2 & 1/2 tsp Salt (plus extra for sprinkling)
- 4 tbsp Cilantro (fine chopped)
- 1/2 - 1/4 Cup Red Onion (small chopped, use as per taste)
- 2 tsp Soy Sauce
- 1/2 tsp Black Pepper (fresh ground pepper (plus extra for sprinkling))
- 3 tbsp Lime (Fresh Lime juice and also add zest of two limes before juicing)
- 1 tsp Wasabi Powder
- Tabasco Sauce (10 dashes of Tabasco)
Directions
-
1. Brush the tuna steaks with olive oil, and sprinkle with generous amount of salt and black pepper. Place the tuna steaks in a very hot saute pan and cook for only 1 minute on each side. Set aside on a platter. -
2. In a small bowl, combine the olive oil, salt, pepper, lime zest, wasabi powder, lime juice, soy sauce and hot sauce. -
3. Remove top and bottom 1/4 inch pieces of all blood oranges and scoop out the flesh to make salad serving cups. Squeeze the juice from scooped out pulp into the vinaigrette (about 5 tbsp). Also slice and add the avocados to the vinaigrette. Additional Notes:
I used medium size blood oranges to make small cups. You can also use lemons or navel oranges cups or totally skip it and add about 4-5 tbsp blood orange juice into the vinaigrette. -
4. Slice the tuna in bite size chunks. In a large bowl add the cilantro, vinaigrette mixture and red onion and mix well. Add sliced tuna and carefully mix. -
5. If using blood orange cups then use a spoon to fill into blood orange cups and serve on a platter garnished with small blood orange wedges or serve it in a salad platter of your choice.
Savita's Recipe Notes:
Serve cold Tuna Salad with glass of Sauvignon Blanc or a cold beer and enjoy!!© Chef De Home. Post content including video and photos are copyright protected.