And apples are nice in things like chicken salad. Not a neutral flavor, though.

Thanks, ci_lantro. I was thinking mostly of tunafish so I probably wouldn't care for apples, but water chestnuts is a great suggestion.

I had a tuna spread once that I loved and always suspected there were water chestnuts in it.

Sometimes I add finely chopped carrot... and occasionally some green bell pepper to tuna. The bell pepper is better if you add hard-boiled egg too. :) I wonder if soaking the celery in cold water would help tone down the intensity?

Try the apples in your tuna salad. That's the way I always make it. Adds a nice crunch and contrasting flavor.

Thanks, but I don't like apples with mayo. Just a personal preference thing. As a kid I would eat almost anything, but not waldorf salad. :)

I can envision other kinds of tuna salad where I would like it (tuna, celery apples, capers, dressed with lemon juice for instance), but my concern about the celery is for traditional tunafish.

I always use either chopped or grated carrots and chopped sweet onion in tuna fish.

I know what you mean about homegrown celery. I even start with trenching and built up a loose peat based soil up high around it to aid in the blanching as it grows but it is always much stronger, less watery crunch. All the water in commercial production tames the flavor. Even some purchased organic has much more of the intense flavor. I just use the tender core with the inner leaves. Love the stronger flavor in everything else.

Don't care for jicama or or the firm tooth of carrot for a celery replacement. Chestnuts would do it. Neutral and crunchy. And just use the inner tender of your celery for the flavor. Small amount.

You would not care for my tuna, loaded with veg, nuts and fruit, olives....cilantro stems...lots of lemon, etc

Apples are really good in tuna salad! If you're worried about too much sweetness, use Granny Smiths.

And I grow Asian cutting celery from Pinetree Seeds. It's a lot easier, & milder than 'true' celery, tho the stalks are thin like parsley, they still give some crunch. It also produces lots of seeds for seasoning as well as saving.

I get it about the apples and mayo. I put apples in curry chicken salad where the mayo is disguised by curry powder, but wouldn't like them in traditional, mayonnaise forward tuna salad.

So...you could try wrecking your celery. :) Make it into celery sticks, right size for chopping the other direction for the salad, and put them in the fridge in ice water for a couple of days. See if that tones down the flavor any.

=OR=

On the basis that your home grown celery isn't going into the salad anyway, and water chestnuts, for all that they're yummy, are much more expensive than a bunch of organic celery from Whole Paycheck, why not just buy some not so intense celery for the tuna salad?

Thanks, Ricky. Actually, I do put onion almost equal to the celery in tunafish, so that's covered. Carrots are an interesting thought.

Thanks, sleevendog. I can't say I've had organic store celery that had more flavor than the non-organic, but it's interesting to know that it sometimes does.

I'll look into the Asian celery, carol, because I'd love it for the seeds even if I didn't care for the taste. I currently grow Tango and I have to say it winds up looking more like cutting celery than stalk celery, but that's fine with me. It never lasts long enough to go to seed, though. Always gets eaten long before then.

I put apples in curry chicken salad where the mayo is disguised by curry powder,

Yes, I do this, too, because when we made hot curry when I was a child, we always put apples and raisins in it and I still like them in many curries.

I do plan to keep putting some of the homegrown celery into the tunafish, because the flavor is really amazing--it makes me understand for the first time why the British traditionally ate celery with butter and cheese. I'm just wanting to taste the tuna and onions and all a little, too. :)

Try Asian pears. Less apple taste, better crispy-ness. Not as sweet.

dcarch

I've never tried apples with tuna. You just mix tuna, apples, and mayo or what? I was thinking like dcarch... if apples are good w/ tuna, then asian pears sound great w/ tuna!

I really don't like carrot chunks in salads. They're too hard. I don't like shredded because they lose all their moisture, or are too wet from the water getting out but not yet evaporated or rubbed off. For me, the best way to use carrots is to slice babies very thin. Not paper thin or no crunch, so just past paper. More like translucent than transparent. Easy to do on a mandolin, or if it's just for a couple of people, with a sharp knife.

When purchased celery stalks and leaves are too strong, I've found celery root (celeriac) works pretty well as a milder alternative. Haven't had much experience/luck with homegrown celery, though. If I can get it to grow in my cool climate, the local deer and skunks seem to wreck it.

Hmm, yes, I think I would like asian pears better than apples in tunafish.

Plllog, interesting about carrots. I can see what you're saying, but this time of year I do get fresh-from-the-ground purple carrots at the greenmarket. But I'm not sure I would like the color they would turn tunafish--they dye food about as much as beet juice, only a bit darker.

Jwvideo, celeriac would be a lovely choice, but it's hardly ever available here. My Michigan neighbors generally bring a few from their farm when they arrive in the fall and they slice them thick and grill them like steaks. But it's close to $5 lb when the stores have it here.

$5 a pound? Yikes! But, then our local grocery store had rutabagas for $2.50 apiece here the other day. Double yikes!! Oh, oh. There goes the chronic old fart warning klaxon. :>)

Highway Robbery!!!

Sliced paper thin almonds are a treat in tuna salad.

I like the water chestnut idea. Apples in a small amount, or Asian pears. Actually, think about salad turnips. I get them at the farmers markets each summer - small and are good and crunchy eaten raw.

No suggestions for the tuna but home grown celery makes really good celery salt. I got some from my friend and I love it.

Oh wait, back to the tuna, I add dill pickle and sweet onion (along with celery) to my tuna, plus, I usually replace my tuna with salmon - less mercury. Sorry wasn't thinking straight as I make tuna salad only a couple of times a year. A lot of times I don't have celery and am fine with the pickle and onion.

I add finely diced carrot, celery, sweet onion, and pecans to my tuna salad.

Asian pears are delicious but expensive. Still much like an apple. I was at the market last night and water chestnuts are a dollar for the small size, 2 bucks for organic. I've never purchased as i prefer fresh foods.

Made some fresh fridge pickles last night for the weekend. Daikon radish and persian cukes. They get nice and crisp overnight, very mild as i barely use any salt, just ac vinegar cut way down and just a few spices. The jar will be gone by monday. Good crisp but still only celery has that super crisp. Red onion is in the jar. Takes the sting out. We voted onion out of our tuna salad for that reason. Shallot and green onion is fine.

Yellow bell peppers were 1.49lb so that goes into mine. I only make it a few times a year but this post has me wanting it...i'll make it Sunday for early week lunches.

Mung bean sprouts that I do myself in a Mason jar. Cucumber medium-coarse grated.

Oh I forgot about cukes! They are very nice, chopped, in all kinds of salads.

When I did eat tuna, I would add the chopped apples, along w/ onion, lemon or lime juice & mayo - and celery too - sometimes bell peppers.

Nowadays I too have switched to salmon instead of tuna. I make salad w/ chopped parsley, green onion & leaf celery, dijon, mayo and eat it w/ celery sticks. I like to add a few drops of smoke flavoring too.

I love tuna salad and like to add carrots along with celery, for the health factor, but too many and they water down & discolour the salad and add a touch too much sweetness. As well as the onion that so many use, I've started using sprouts too, and they add enough satisfying crunch :)

Thanks, everyone! So many good suggestions.

I bought several beautiful, organic celeriac today at Whole Foods @$2.99/lb, and some medium sized organic rutabagas and organic parsnips for the same price. I don't mind paying up for organic, because I want to encourage the move to sustainable agriculture, but if they were conventionally produced I'd expect them for not too much more than half of that.

Radishes - particularly the larger milder Asian varieties. Slightly pickled is good. But then I hate mayo so my tuna is going to have weird seasonings...

Yeah, daikon would be great, agmss15, but again, only shows up around here once in a great while. Odd, since it's grown here commercially, but it all goes to restaurants further south.

Rutabagas. We actually have had rutabaga for 99¢ a lb, but they were so big that the one I bought was around $4, and so tough that I could have chopped through one of the wooden bun feet from my sofa more easily. :)

LOL! We get those sometimes. I have to get man shoulders to come break break 'em up. Cooked, they're fine, but tender they're not. Amazing about the daikon, too. I've only been to Florida once, quite a time ago, and was mostly buying picnic foods, but even the smaller towns we were in seemed well supplied. I guess not, huh?

I absolutely hate apples in tuna salad, and I'm sure I would hate pears or anything else sweet in tuna salad as well. I also hate sweet pickles in tuna salad, and even bread and butter pickles are too sweet for me.

I suggest that you stay with celery and just buy some bland celery at the store or farmers' market and then add small amounts of your own celery to taste.

Thanks, Lars. It's funny, when I was a child I loathed relish in tuna salad, but in my old age I find I'm getting to like it, although I'm not generally fond of any sweet pickles except cornichons.