Give Your Tuna Salad The Elote Treatment For Maximum Flavor

If you're a frequent eater of canned tuna sandwiches, you probably have your baseline ingredients memorized and stocked for your next predicated craving. While there's nothing wrong with a simple can of tuna mixed with mayo, onion, celery, and select seasonings, the traditional tuna salad recipe can get a bit old after a while. Luckily, it's easy to upgrade it into a delicious elote-inspired meal.

In order to add the flavors of Mexican street corn, first consider the ingredients required to make this classic dish. Elote is grilled corn on the cob dressed in a sauce composed of mayo and sour cream. This creamy corn is then sprinkled with chili powder or Tajín and topped with crumbled cotija cheese, lime juice, and chopped cilantro. By adjusting your tuna salad recipe to accommodate some or all of these flavorful ingredients, you'll have a new and improved tuna salad in no time. 

Depending on how much time you have, elote tuna salad can be made in several different ways. If you're only after a quick upgrade, simply adjust your standard lineup of spices. To imbue your tuna salad with supreme elote flavor, incorporate not only the right blend of spices, but extra fresh ingredients.

Infusing traditional tuna salad with everything you love about Mexican street corn is both easy and delicious. Feel free to use your standard tuna salad recipe as a guide and adjust accordingly. While grilled corn gives this meal a charred essence, steamed frozen corn or canned corn also get the job done. Combine tuna, mayo, corn, and any other vegetables that might provide an extra burst of flavor. You might want to add some diced red onion and jalapeño. Pickled red onions also provide a nice contrast to tuna salad's creamier components. Then add chopped cilantro, lime juice, chili powder, and cotija cheese. For more protein, throw in chopped hard-boiled eggs or canned black beans. Take note: With bulkier ingredients in the mix, you may need to adjust the amount of mayonnaise used.

If you feel overwhelmed at the thought of adjusting your classic tuna salad recipe to include these flavorful ingredients, follow a recipe for esquites and add tuna before serving. Esquites come served in a cup, which allows for more flexibility in accommodating incremental extras. Whichever recipe you choose to follow, Mexican corn-inspired tuna salad is the perfect blend of fresh ingredients with just the right amount of creamy and tangy flavors.

If you don't have the right combination of ingredients to make a supreme elote-inspired tuna salad, you can simply upgrade the dish with the right seasonings. Instead of using only chili powder, make a unique blend of warm and smoky spices. Combine the sort of spices you typically use on taco night, like chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika, and a bit of garlic and onion powder. Adding this spice blend to conventional tuna salad pumps up the recipe's base flavor with the essence of Mexican street corn. 

Alternatively, secure a bottle of Everything But The Elote Seasoning blend from Trader Joe's. Made with chipotle powder, corn flour, and parmesan cheese, a sprinkle of this is an easy way to give your tuna salad an extra boost. If all else fails, enough salt and chili powder or Tajín. A squeeze of lime, if you have some, takes things even further. This unique combination of ingredients is sure to give any tuna salad a surefire upgrade.