We love Wild Planet tuna. You can get it at Costco, not sure where else. It packaged with salt, that's all. It tastes wonderful!

I will try that brand the next time I am at Costco. I tried another brand there and it was nothing special . I do wish Costco would sell in smaller quantities.

I like Ortiz and Tonnino. For regular tuna salad, I use the Wild Planet Tuna also. When I make a Nicoise salad, I use the Tonnino or Ortiz. I prefer my Tuna packed in oil.

On Vitacost you can get a 5 oz can of Wild Planet for $3.77, so instead of getting like 4 cans at Costco you can order them in Vitacost per can. You can also get individual cans from Amazon for 3.39 each. Just letting you know!

The Kirkland brand at Costco is good, but you do have to buy 8 cans -- which is more an issue of storage than it going bad. I cannot ever remember having or seeing a can of tuna go bad They were sampling the Kirkland albacore tuna when we were in the store a while back and I have bought it since. I had given up on tuna -- the store brand and the national brands all seemed to be mush.

BTW, canned tuna is a good protein source that is shelf stable and one of those things they are usually very happy to get in food donations, so you could consider splitting the pack for yourself and a food bank.

Tonnino is great, but there must be someplace you can get it for less. It's $7 a jar in Publix, so I buy bumblebee or Chicken of the Sea, alas.

We like Chicken of the Sea. Our palates definitely taste the tuna and enjoy it. Bumblebee is okay, but we prefer Chicken of the Sea. Haven't tried the Costco Wild Planet, but plan to try it now. Have never seen the Tonnino and Ortiz brands.

I never even heard of Wild Planet, but will definitely look for it. I never saw Tonnino or Ortiz, either. I wonder if either TJs or Whole Foods (or do I call it Amazon now), carries it. Thanks for the suggestions. I remember canned tuna as being delicious when I was a kid but now -- yuck. I also don't like Starkist.

Pam, head for an Italian market/deli and get one packed in oil. Major difference from the US tuna.

I love the jarred Italian tunas as well, but I would not use them a tuna salad with mayonnaise and such (in a Salade Nicoise, yes.)

I like Raincoast Trading and Tonnino. Both are available at Walmart; much cheaper than Whole Foods.

https://raincoasttrading.com/

I don't like Starkist either, dedtired. I will look at Walmart for the Raincoast Trading and Tonnino, but sure don't recall ever seeing them at any of the stores in our area, CindyMac.

If you can't find them locally both are available on their website.

Rio Mare tuna. It's Italian. It's expensive. I buy it only as a special treat. It's the only canned tuna I can eat as is. The addition of mayo would spoil the taste for me.

I buy only the ones packed in plain olive oil, not the flavored ones.

https://www.amazon.com/Mare-Tuna-Italy-Italys-Number/dp/B00J0FF498

Hmm, I guess I shouldn't complain about the Publix price of $7 a jar for Tonnino, seeing that it's $48 for six jars on amazon.

That's only a dollar a jar more on Amazon, unless that doesn't include shipping. Shipping glass is killer.

With food off Amazon Marketplace, you get all kinds of weird prices. Often there will be some big blown up price which, to me, means either the seller thinks he has the last ones out there, she thinks suckers will pay anything, or it's not so much that they want to sell through the mail as use Amazon listings as a form of advertising. Most of the Amazon prices from their own warehouses are competitive to good. Who knows what they're going to do to Whole Foods...

So many tunas, so little time. Loving all these suggestions. I will have to think beyond the usual supermarket brands. Thanks

I'm also going to try some of these brands. We use Bumble Bee albacore in water. I don't like the taste the oil imparts to the fish. But in reality, once you add the garlic powder, onion powder, a pinch of jerk rub, and the mayonnaise, just exactly what are you really tasting?

I buy skip jack tuna at trader joe's...I get the dark tuna in water. I find it more flavorful than the white tuna...

I was forced to eat canned tuna when I was a child and still can't stand it, any brand. I buy fresh tuna from the seafood market of my grocery store or even frozen, cook it, cool and flake it and I love it. I know canned is handy but the flavor of real is far superior. The advantage is that I can buy just a little bit for the two of us.

I wonder if the difference some of you are seeing is that the Italian brands may be raw packed, then canned. I haven't bought canned tuna in years, I can my own and raw pack it.

Most of the name brand commercially canned tuna available is cooked twice. The fish is cooked whole for ease in handling (thus cost efficiency), then broken apart, packed, cooked again in the canning process. I can tell which I'm eating and it doesn't matter if canned with water or oil.

MY MIL didn't pressure can at home, she would take her fish to a small local cannery where they would bake it. Then she would fill her cans, and leave it for them to process. It was no different than anything I could buy at the grocery store. Not of much interest to me - I didn't know how good tuna could be in a sandwich, or in sauce with noodles or rice until my much older neighbor introduced me to raw pack and canning. All the difference in the world. One company that offered raw packed tuna used to be Oregon's Choice, but you have to really want tuna, it was/is $$$$.

I buy a jarred brand of Oregon cold water albacore, with no liquid added. It is heavenly....I get it at my food co-op; not sure how widely available it is. It may be available at Whole Foods. Sometimes I get the unsalted, but do like the salted a bit more.
Sweet Creek Tuna

Olychick, another raw packed I hadn't heard of. I'm glad you have some fish to enjoy - is it expensive at your co-op?

Yes, it is pricey; can't remember the exact price - but I'd all but given up on tuna it was all so bad, so I am happy to just bite the bullet and pay the price for a once in a while treat. It's a larger jar than the regular sized cans, with virtually no liquid - all solid fish. NW albacore is one of the lowest mercury fish available, so I don't mind paying a bit more for something healthier. I did poke around on the internet and it looks like it's available only on the west coast and mostly in food co-ops.

Morz, you remind me of my childhood. My father would go fishing for canned tuna! (They traded their haul to the cannery..)

I bought Wild Planet at Whole Foods but haven't tried it yet. I will report back! Thanks everyone.

I didn't see Genova mentioned. I like the Albacore (purple label) packed in oil. Cans are a little over $2 at my stores. When I want tuna for a pasta sauce or a lovely appetizer, I splurge on Tonnino.

Just FYI, Genova tuna is just a marketing ploy by Chicken of the Sea to see if people will pay a premium for fancy packaging. (When it debuted here, it was about 40% more than with the CotS label.)

For a long time the ingredients list was honest enough to list "chicken of the sea tuna" as the main ingredient, although I see they've realized that was stupid and removed it.

Dedtired, I'm glad to see you here, welcome back!

Canned tuna? It's all pretty much the same to me, after I add onion and mayo and garlic salt and whatever else suits me, but Elery likes the jars of tuna we get at the Mediterranean Market, canned in glass and packed in oil. I find that greasy and don't care for it. If I buy the more expensive cans of white albacore, those are even more tasteless than the cheap cans, go figure.

Like Nancy, I do like tuna steaks, cooked and then flaked and made into tuna salad, and I've made a salad with tuna and white beans, which I think would be similar to your tuna and garbanzos. The recipe came from Eating Well, and they also have a tuna/artichoke/olive dish that I think Elery would like, I'll have to try that for him.

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipe/251517/tuna-white-bean-salad/

Annie

@writersblock

I can see and taste the difference when I open my can. One looks like cat food and the other is in lovely chunks. Whether it's because I was unlucky or not, I haven't been disappointed and Genova isn't unreasonable in price. Also, finding it packed in oil is challenging with the other brands. It's all water packed, which I don't like.

I'll conserve tuna steaks, occasionally, too.

That's interesting, Alex. I haven't bought since it first came out, but at that point it seemed pretty much the same as regular CotS solid white albacore in oil. I'm surprised you can only find tuna in water. I hate Publix these days, but they carry everything they carry in both oil and water.

We've recently begun buying a lot of Harris Teeter tuna in the tiny cans. Began buying it in order to extract the juice to cover up the taste of our cat's medication. (Better than the pill-gun battle.). But the vet does not want him to have any actual tuna. So being a cheapskate, I began saving it in a dish and making tuna salad from it. It really is equal to -- if not superior to -- the regular brands. But it is by no means a gourmet tuna. We deeply dislike Bumblebee and CotS. I am going to try Tonnio's!

Another vote for Genova. I use yellowfin in olive oil only. Eat it on my salad for lunch almost every day. If it is still owned by CoftS, the treatment and processing of tuna for the Genova line is VASTLY superior to the other product lines.

I had a tuna sandwich made with the Wild Planet tuna. Whata difference. It tastes like tuna! I bought some Cento tuna and something else that says Tonno on it at my grocery store so we will try those soon. They cost twice as much as Bumblebee, etc, but if they are better tasting it will be worth it.

How much canned tuna is OK?

Fortunately, parents and kids need not give up tuna altogether.

There are two main kinds of canned tuna: chunk light and solid or chunk white (albacore). All canned white tuna is albacore. Its mercury levels are almost three times higher than the smaller skipjack, used in most canned light tuna.

These recommendations are based on EPA guidance and estimates of mercury in the most popular canned tunas:

• Canned white, or albacore (0.32 parts per million of mercury). Children under six can eat up to one 3-ounce portion a month; children from 6–12, two 4.5-ounce portions a month. Adults, including pregnant women, can safely eat it up to three times a month (women, 6-ounce portions; men, 8-ounce portions).

• Canned light — the safer choice (0.12 parts per million of mercury). Children under six can eat up to three 3-ounce portions per month. Older children and adults can safely eat it once a week. But look out for “gourmet” or “tonno” labels. They are made with bigger yellowfin tuna and can contain mercury levels comparable to canned white.

• A better alternative is canned salmon (mostly sockeye or pink from Alaska), which is low in contaminants and high in heart-healthy omega-3s. It’s also sustainably caught in Alaska and similarly priced, making it a great choice all around.

https://www.edf.org/oceans/mercury-alert-canned-tuna-safe-eat?_ga=2.1742961.1371067528.1499192606-1336575232.1499192606

Well, there's also white or light yellowfin, but it's just as bad on the mercury.

The timing of your question is perfect for us. How I wish that our Sharon/canary bird was still with us. We just returned from a trip to France and Spain where we indulged in Ensalata Rusa, the Spanish Tuna salad.

It was delicious and I had to remind myself that I was actually eating tuna. This comes from someone who adored tunafish sandwiches as a kid, but can't tolerate the dry, awful stuff called albacore in cans now.

Care to share the recipe for the chick peas and tuna dish you had in Portugal?

TIA

It's pretty simple.

Salada de grao cum atum:

3.5 oz can of tuna

10 oz of chick peas

sea salt

olive oil

vinegar

parsley/cilantro

onion

garlic

Chop onion and garlic finely (doesn't say how much, so I guess to taste)

mix chickpeas with tuna.

sprinkle with plenty of olive oil (your guess is as good as mine)

add vinegar to taste and pinch of sea salt

sprinkle with cilantro or parsley

Mix it all together and enjoy.

Thanks to you both for those recipes.

Here's a link to a recipe that most closely resembles the delicious and simple salad that we enjoyed in Barcelona. Ensaladilla Rusa Recipe / Russian Potato Salad with Tuna

Compumom, that's going on my list to try! Thanks for the link.

Hummus (which is mostly garbanzos) is good with tuna salad (or chicken salad), and I often make wraps with hummus and tuna salad. It sound somewhat similar to the tuna garbanzo salad. Anyway, hummus makes a good sandwich spread, similar to the way I use refried beans on bolillos when making tortas. I don't really use refried beans, however - I use a spicy bean dip/spread made with pinto or red beans.

As for canned tuna - I haven't bought it in years, since I often have leftover tuna from tuna steaks that I buy, and I use that for tuna salad. When I do buy canned tuna, I buy Italian tuna in olive oil, but I do not know the brand.