8 Quick and Easy Tuna Dinner Recipes

There is a can of tuna in my cupboard right now that I will forget about until roughly Thursday.

It is the most useful thing I own and the last thing I think of.

A tin turns into dinner in ten minutes, and a fresh steak turns into dinner that looks like you made an effort.

Both kinds are below.

1. Quick Seared Sesame Crusted Tuna

Fresh tuna pressed into black and white sesame seeds, seared rare and sliced over rice or noodles with ponzu, soy, lime and scallions.

Ten minutes, serves four.

Press the seeds on firmly and only on the flat sides.

Sesame burns fast, so the pan should be hot but not smoking.

Sliced across the grain, this is the best-looking thing you can put on a plate in ten minutes.

2. Seared Ahi Tuna Steak with Mango Salsa

Seared ahi topped with mango, red onion, lime, coriander and jalapeño.

Fifteen minutes, serves two.

Use a mango that gives slightly when you press it, since a hard one will not dice cleanly or taste of much.

Make the salsa before the fish, because the tuna is done in two minutes and should not wait.

3. Tuna Steak with Sauce Vierge

Pan-seared tuna steak served with a fresh tomato and olive sauce vierge.

Eight minutes, serves two.

Sauce vierge is uncooked, which is why this is as fast as it is.

Make it first and let it sit while the pan heats, so the tomato and olive have time to loosen in the oil.

4. Seared Ahi Tuna

Ahi steak flash-seared with avocado oil and salt, then sliced over greens with a dressing.

Five minutes, serves two.

The pan needs to be properly hot and the fish needs to come out while the middle is still red.

Tuna cooked all the way through turns pale and chalky, and an expensive piece of fish is wasted.

Around a minute per side on a thick steak is all it takes.

5. Easy Garlic Lemon Tuna Pasta

Tuna in olive oil with garlic, lemon zest and juice, capers, arugula and red chili flakes, tossed through pasta.

Fifteen minutes, serves four.

Buy tuna packed in olive oil for this and use the oil in the sauce.

Water-packed tuna drains away most of the flavor and the pasta ends up dry.

The arugula goes in off the heat and wilts in the residual warmth.

6. Mexican Tuna Salad

Canned tuna with black beans, corn, jalapeño, red bell pepper, lime and cumin, bound with Greek yogurt and spooned into lettuce cups.

Ten minutes, serves four.

Greek yogurt in place of mayonnaise keeps it light without tasting like a compromise.

It is also good in a tortilla if lettuce cups feel like too little dinner.

7. Loaded Tuna Sweet Potatoes

Roasted sweet potato halves loaded with tuna mixed with Greek yogurt, Dijon, capers, feta and pumpkin seeds.

Ten minutes of assembly, serving two, on top of sweet potatoes you have already baked.

The recipe card gives no cook time because it assumes the potatoes are done, so treat this as a leftovers dinner.

Bake a tray of sweet potatoes at the weekend and this becomes genuinely quick.

8. Cold Tuna Pasta Salad

Canned tuna with pasta, celery, radish, red onion, dill and lemon juice, bound with cottage cheese in place of mayonnaise.

Seven minutes, and the recipe scales to twelve servings, so it is the one for a crowd.

Blend the cottage cheese smooth before it goes in, or the dressing stays lumpy.

Radish and dill are what keep it fresh and stop it turning claggy.

Tips for Buying Tuna

Fresh tuna for searing should look deep red and glossy, never brown or dull at the edges.

Ask for sashimi grade if you are eating it rare, and buy it the day you cook it.

For canned, olive oil packed has more flavor and water packed is leaner, and that choice matters more than the brand.

Solid or chunk tuna holds its texture in salads, while flaked disappears into pasta.

Pouches skip the draining step, which is genuinely useful on a weeknight.

Notes on Leftovers

Tuna salad is good for two or three days in a sealed container.

The pasta salad is better on day two, once the dressing has soaked in.

Seared tuna is day-of food and does not improve overnight.

Hot tuna pasta is best fresh, since the sauce is absorbed by the next day and the dish goes dry.

Nothing on this list freezes particularly well.