Give Your Tuna Salad A Crunchy Upgrade With This Salty Snack

Plain tuna salad is a serviceable spread, but it can be a lot tastier if you go beyond the standard mix-ins of mayonnaise, celery, and onions. You can spice it up with kimchi or go southern-style by adding pimento cheese, but one sure-fire way to improve it is by adding an ingredient that can give it a little crunch. Some sandwich makers may like to get experimental by adding nuts or chopped apples, but today's suggestion is something that blends in more seamlessly with tuna's standard flavor profile of fishy plus tangy: pickle-flavored potato chips.

Pickles, too, are a common tuna add-in, and they also bring texture to the salad, but using dill pickle potato chips makes it even more crunchy as well as adding some extra salt along with the tang. (You can always go with both if you're particularly partial to pickles.) The one thing about adding potato chips to a creamy salad, though, is that you might not want to stir them in to be covered with mayonnaise since that could make them soggy. Instead, you can sprinkle them on top of the sandwich right before you eat it to maximize the crunch. Wavy or kettle chips are the best choice, too, since they're likely to hold up better than the delicate, thin-cut kind.

While dill-flavored everything has been trendy since the 20-teens, it's not everyone's cup of pickle juice. That's okay, since there are plenty of other potato chip flavors that can complement this salad. If you're looking to accentuate the tangy side of tuna, you couldn't do better than salt and vinegar chips. Sour cream and onion would provide a more subtle kind of tartness, while cheese-flavored chips can make for a tuna melt flavor. Barbecue chips add sweetness, jalapeño ones provide a hint of heat, and even plain chips bring both salt and crunch.

Potato chips aren't the only salty snacks that make great tuna salad toppers. Matthew McConaughey's tuna salad recipe calls for crispy jalapeño chips, while french-fried onions provide a similar crunch with less heat. Pretzel pieces would be perfect for those who like it salty, while tortilla chips can complement a southwestern-style tuna salad flavored with salsa and shredded cheese. Cheese puffs, too, make a tasty option, especially the crunchy kind. Even crushed pork rinds may be used as an add-in. Unlike these other items, they're sufficiently solid that they can be stirred straight into the mayonnaise mixture. If you swap out the bread for a lettuce leaf, a chicharrone tuna wrap can make for a satisfying low-carb lunch.