Tested: this is the tastiest (and worst!) tuna salad from the supermarket

We do sometimes pick up a salad from the supermarket for lunch at the office or drinks. And yes, just as we love spreading the tastiest egg salad from the supermarket on our toast, we naturally do the same with tuna salad. But where can you buy the tastiest one? Time for the tuna salad test!

Tuna salad is simply a mix of two ingredients: canned tuna and mayonnaise. Add a fresh caper or some chopped pickle, a little salt and pepper, and you’re already well on your way. Homemade is the absolute best – no doubt. But instead of making it yourself, you can buy various ready-made tuna salads at the supermarket. For our test, we bought tuna salads from 8 different supermarkets: Plus, Jumbo, Lidl, Coop, Albert Heijn, Dirk, Aldi and Vomar.

The price

Every supermarket sells its own-brand tuna salads in different quantities and at different prices. Not entirely unimportant when you want to know what you’re getting for your money, right? We’ve listed the prices for you:

Plus: 150 grams, €2.35
Jumbo: 175 grams, €2.37
Lidl: 175 grams, €1.79
Coop: 175 grams, €2.39
Albert Heijn: 175 grams, €2.39
Dirk: 175 grams, €1.99
Aldi: 250 grams, €1.59
Vomar: 250 grams, €1.99

The looks

At first glance, the salads look perfectly fine. One may be a touch more orange than the other, but the difference is small. The only thing that stands out is that you can clearly see some herbs in number 3, while number 2 is the palest of them all.

A good start

The first one we taste is surprisingly delicious. It has a good tuna flavor, isn’t too saucy or creamy, and even contains pieces of pickle. Something we at FavorFlav are quite fond of. “Delicious, I’d definitely spread it on my toast,” says Lauretta. Rick is slightly less enthusiastic; he prefers salads with a creamy texture rather than a fresh flavor, so for him there’s no need for herbs and pickles. After tasting all the salads, we discovered that this one is from Plus.

But then…

Then there’s number 2, bought at Jumbo: “This looks a little sick,” says Jeffrey. After tasting it, we agree: this tuna salad has a slightly fishier flavor, perhaps because the pieces of tuna are clearly present. Rick: “I really like this one because of that fishy flavor.” Conclusion: despite its appearance, it turns out to be surprisingly well received.

The third one, Lauretta: “This has real chunks of tuna, as well as a distinct dill flavor.” But that’s where it ends. Because of the amount of oil, this seems more like a sauce than a salad. Number 4, bought at Lidl, isn’t a favorite either. You have to search carefully to find a piece of tuna. Jeffrey: “Boring!” Rick: “It’s as if they forgot the salt here.”

The fifth is, as the test panel describes it, a “typical tuna salad for a birthday drinks party.” Factory-made and squeezed into the tub, not particularly delicious but certainly not unpleasant either. This is what you expect from a tuna salad. Jeffrey: “Very average.” Afterwards, it turns out to be the Albert Heijn salad.

Tuna salads 6 and 7 are both very creamy and slide down easily. “It’s as if number 6 has been through a blender,” says Rick, who discovers at the end of the test that it comes from Dirk. Number 7, from Aldi, is also somewhat bland in flavor and contains a striking amount of mayonnaise. According to Lauretta and Jeffrey, both salads lack freshness: “Too creamy, you have to like that.”

The finale

But then comes the final tuna salad. Jeffrey: “Mmmmm, this is really delicious!” It has plenty of flavor from the herbs. Truly fresh and rich. It also contains exactly the right amount of tuna pieces, and the mayo ratio is perfectly balanced. Lauretta: “Yes, really delicious!” It therefore finishes far and away at the top. But which supermarket sells this top salad? Vomar, as it turns out.

Conclusion

If you like a fresher tuna salad with some herbs here and there, just like Lauretta and Jeffrey, then numbers 1 (Plus) and 8 (Vomar) are the clear winners. Rick: “For me, a tuna salad should simply taste like tuna without any extras, and it can be nice and creamy. So I’m going for the second one” – which turns out to have been bought at Jumbo. “It may look the least appealing, but in terms of flavor it definitely stands out!” Rick concludes. The last place? That goes to Lidl (salad 3) and Dirk (tuna salad number 6 in the test).

Sustainable tuna salad

Johma is sold at several supermarkets. Because we only wanted to test supermarket own-brand tuna salads, we did not include it in the test. Would you like to buy sustainable tuna salad at the supermarket? Amsterdam-based company Fish Tales, known for seafood chef and cookbook author Bart van Olphen, is the first in the Netherlands to bring tuna salad to supermarkets that is not only delicious, but made with tuna that has been sustainably caught and processed. Tip!

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