What Makes Creamed Tuna Different From The Classic Salad?

Did you know your canned tuna can be used for more than just tossing into a classic tuna salad? Try transforming your canned tuna into a hearty, savory meal for dinnertime by making creamed tuna.

While tuna salad is a light, cold dish, creamed tuna is served hot. And their preparation methods are different, as well. Creamed tuna comes together in a saucepan along with a few ingredients that create a delicious, easy cream sauce. But when it comes to making a traditional tuna salad, you simply drain your canned tuna and mix it in a bowl with a few other ingredients like mayonnaise, chopped celery, and onion. 

Their contrasting ingredients also make for two different textures: A crunchy bite of tuna salad versus a thick, velvety bite of creamed tuna. While both dishes share the same humble beginnings in canned tuna, they give you two very different but equally comforting meals as a result. Now, you can take your canned tuna from lunch to dinner with a few simple tweaks.

Creamed tuna has only two components at its most basic level: Tuna and a cream sauce made from a roux. Start your roux like you would for any other recipe by melting butter in a saucepan and combining it with flour. 

Use a whisk to combine and gradually pour in some milk. Regular cow's milk works fine, but you could substitute with almond milk for a dairy-free version. Remember to keep stirring and whisking until the mixture thickens up for the right texture. The roux is the key to making this dish creamy. 

Once you have your roux, simply add your drained can of tuna to the saucepan and heat everything together. And then you're ready to eat. Even though you had to bust out the saucepan, creamed tuna comes together just as fast as tuna salad. 

Creamed tuna is commonly served over starches like toast, biscuits, or rice for a more filling meal. And a classic version even calls for cooked peas in the cream sauce. Hooray for still eating your vegetables even in a last-minute, pantry-raid meal.

Tuna salad sprang up in popularity in the early 20th century. It was an easy option at lunch counters for women living in urban areas who already enjoyed making salads out of leftovers at home. Canned fish was already growing in popularity, but by the 1930s, canned tuna was all the rage. Flash forward to the 1950s, and you could find tuna salad in many delis and on almost every family dinner table in the United States.

Creamed tuna, on the other hand, is often categorized as a Great Depression-era meal – a meal including simple, cheap staple ingredients like flour, butter, and canned food. But over the recipe's 100-year history, it's come to be remembered by many as a fond childhood favorite, with people making it today out of love instead of necessity. And in the end, there's nothing depressing about making a comfort meal that soothes the soul.