Who introduced you to your first tuna and potato chips sandwich? A lunchroom friend? A parent? Or maybe it was your own early culinary invention?
Despite its popularity (and undeniable glory), its provenance has proven difficult.
According to the then United States Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, in 1959 8 out of 10 American households served canned tuna at least once a week, often in a casserole topped with crushed potato chips. (Recipes for tuna noodle stew date back to the turn of the century.) Given the ubiquity of each ingredient, it seems likely that around this time, kids started to mix up the two. The timing coincides with some of the earliest tuna and chips anecdotes I found in my interviews.
Chef Alex Guarnaschelli told me that her late mother, Maria, who edited my first cookbook, had made a version with barbecue-flavored potato chips and toasted rye bread. (The chip company Herr’s, in Nottingham, Pennsylvania, introduced barbecue chips to its line in 1958, when the elderly Mrs. Guarnaschelli was a teenager.)
Ashley and Avery Hardin also opt for barbecue chips in the excellent white sandwich they serve from their food truck, Layers Sandwich Company, in Seattle. Theirs is an imaginative version of the one Mr. Hardin grew up eating, flavored with shallots and cornichons. Ms. Hardin says she prefers Doritos in her own tuna sandwiches. For her, as is the case for many, it’s the combination of soft and crunchy – what she called “textural umami” – that makes the combination work.
I agree, based on the results of several informal taste tests: The crunchier the chip, the better the sandwich. Kettle-style chips retain their texture longer than thinner standard chips. Ruffles are even crispier. I was especially surprised and delighted at the generous crunch (and salt) a handful of Fritos add. Jeff Mason, who ran Pal’s Takeaway sandwich shop in the Bay Area, swears by Indian papadums. This makes me wonder what other crunchy salty snacks might work.
Dan Pashman, host of the podcast “The Sporkful,” said the key was to aim for “dynamic contrast,” or different textures during the bite. He compared it to a bar: “There’s a hard shell, then a sticky part, then a chewy or crunchy part.”
His mother, Linda, says tuna and chip sandwiches were a staple at slumber parties during her 1960s childhood in Marblehead, Massachusetts. These include Hutchinson’s crisps, a handmade kettle-cooked brand that operated continuously in Marblehead from 1892 to 1968.
The writer and chef Allison Robicelli suggested adding crushed chips directly to the tuna salad, a move inspired by the tuna sandwiches her husband, Matt, ate as a paramedic at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn. But I found the real trick is to fold them in at the last minute, before spooning it onto the bread, balancing another big handful of chips on top of the tuna, then closing the sandwich tightly to embed the chip layer in. the salad. This gives the entire sandwich extra structural integrity, maintains that dynamic contrast and lets you feel and hear the crunch before your first bite.
I remember my mom making her tuna salad by squeezing the water from a can of tuna over the sink, using the lid as a strainer, adding a big dollop of Japanese Kewpie mayo and mixing it directly into the can with a fork. . I hesitate to tell you what to add to your tuna salad because it feels like such decisions are so closely tied to identity. (In a recent DailyExpertNews Cooking recipe inspired by Iranian flavors, Naz Deravian suggests dill, parsley, lemon juice, and chopped pickles.)
Personally, I like the crunch of diced celery and red onions, and, if I fancy, some chopped parsley and chives. If you’re feeling red, you can add a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil to the tuna salad with a fork, an idea from Chef Ana Sortun, who folds tuna and olive oil into the filling of what may be the largest deviled eggs around. at her restaurant in Boston, Oleana.
But there’s no need to get fancy with the tuna itself. I had my family try tuna salads made with any kind of canned tuna, ranging from the cheapest water-packed albacore tuna to oil-packed Mediterranean yellowfin tuna belly, in a side-by-side taste test. After seasoning the salad and shaping the sandwiches, the main discernible difference is the price. I strongly recommend to save the beautiful things for other uses. Water-filled firm skipjack or albacore tuna works great, and those smaller fish are harvested more responsibly, too.
I can’t remember my first tuna salad and potato chips sandwich, although I do remember my dad teaching me how to make a tuna melt. My friends Charles and Rachel Kelsey say they started adding a layer of chips between the tuna and the melted cheese in the tuna melts they serve at their Brookline, Massachusetts sandwich shop, Cutty’s. I haven’t tried this yet, but Charles tells me it’s become an essential step for him.
This has been the most common refrain among the dozens of people I’ve interviewed and the hundreds of others who have responded to my social media posts: Whether you discover tuna and chips sandwiches as a kid or an adult, you’re not making them at all. other way .
Recipe: Tuna Crunch sandwiches