Tuna Salad with Egg

Week 371. Spring 2023. I am 40 years old and standing in my kitchen — the Bench house kitchen, the one that held cancer and divorce and cinnamon rolls — and the stove is on and something is cooking and the house smells like fresh herbs and possibility and this is my life. This is the life I built.

I went for a run this morning — the Saturday routine, the greenbelt, the river, the particular meditation of feet on a path and lungs filling and the body doing what it was told it couldn't do. The running group meets rain or shine.

Mason is 12 and reading everything he can find and examining the world under a microscope with the intensity of a tenured researcher.

Lily is 10 and riding horses with the fearlessness of someone who has never considered the possibility of falling.

I made fresh pesto pasta this week. The food continues. The food always continues. It is the thread that connects every week to every other week, every year to every other year, every version of me to every other version — the woman on the kitchen floor, the woman at the chemo recliner, the woman at the grill, the woman at the outdoor table under the string lights. All of them, connected by the food they made with their hands. All of them, me.

The pesto pasta was for dinner, but the tuna salad was for me — made quietly after my run, before the kids were fully awake, in that still hour when the kitchen belongs only to the person standing in it. There is something about a recipe this simple and this reliable that feels exactly right for a Saturday in week 371: no performance, no occasion, just hands doing familiar work and a bowl of something good waiting at the end. It’s the kind of food that doesn’t ask anything of you, and that, some weeks, is the whole point.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 12 minutes | Total Time: 22 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

2 cans (5 oz each) solid white albacore tuna in water, drained
3 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and roughly chopped
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 stalks celery, finely diced
2 tablespoons red onion, finely diced
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
Salt and black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped (optional)

Instructions

Hard-boil the eggs. Place eggs in a small saucepan and cover with cold water by 1 inch. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then remove from heat, cover, and let sit for 10–12 minutes. Transfer to an ice bath, peel, and roughly chop.
Drain and flake the tuna. Open both cans of tuna and press firmly to drain all liquid. Transfer to a medium mixing bowl and flake apart with a fork until the texture is even but not mushy.
Mix the dressing. Add the mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, and garlic powder to the bowl with the tuna. Stir to combine.
Add the vegetables. Fold in the diced celery and red onion until evenly distributed throughout the salad.
Add the eggs. Gently fold in the chopped hard-boiled eggs, taking care not to break them down completely — some larger pieces add good texture.
Season and finish. Taste and season with salt and black pepper. Stir in fresh parsley if using. Serve immediately on toasted bread, crackers, or over leafy greens, or refrigerate covered for up to 3 days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Tuna Salad with Egg — The Food That Keeps Connecting Us