Canned tuna....Oil or water?

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
1

I prefer canned tuna packed in:

  • Olive oil
  • Vegetable oil
  • Water

0 voters

I am making the leap from American canned tuna in water to a more European style canned tuna in olive oil. My hope is to find a better cut of tuna and not have the final resulting tuna salad be so watery. I picked up some Bumblebee “Italian style” tuna packed in olive oil and the result seemed much better than the water packed stuff I was used to. I’m a little hesitant to dive right in to the very expensive Italian and Spanish brands I see on the shelf. It would be no problem to jump from $6.00/lb. to $49.00/lb…

What do you do?

2

Stink, you ignorant slut. Kirkland brand albacore in water. Drain the stuff, dude. It won’t be watery. Plus, the Kirkland is a solid lump of tuna, not the flake that passes as “solid” with other brands.

3

Holy shit, am I agreeing with Bob Wood? Stop the world, I’m getting off!

4

I’ll refrain from calling you an ignorant slut, but the Kirkland solid albacore in water is the shiznit…

5

Well over fifteen years consuming tuna packed in water. Tonight was an epiphany. The olive oil packed tuna rocks.

Slut? Maybe. Ignorant? Never!!!

6

I have a financial bias here because we import one of those “expensive” Spanish brands. We import directly from a producer in Galicia who labels it under our Veleta brand. Ours is a solid pack of white tuna packed in olive oil and just slightly salted. We have a great following in the Midwest for our tuna. Apart from the inherent bias I personally have, with all the health benefits and the delicious flavor of Olive Oil, why would you want tuna packed in anything else?

Some pics I took at 6am this morning, sorry not the best quality.

Viva Veleta, Ole!

7

The results were pretty dramatic. Water tastes like…well…water. Olive oil seems to pick up and also add flavor.

I should have known.

8

Canned tuna is terrible…where the the option for neither? (sorry Nola)

9

I generally prefer Spanish and Italian packed in olive oil. It usually comes in a jar instead of can fwiw.

10

Ventresca. Albo is one of the most widely distributed brands and also one of the best. Ventresca is Mediterranean blue fin tuna belly (think olive oil canned toro).

11

Wild Planet is wonderful and it isn’t packed in anything. http://www.wildplanetfoods.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Skipjack is fantastic.

There some others out there packed in olive oil that are great, too.

JD

12

watery? I’m with Wood and Saxon - drain it and it’s not watery. Duh. Want olive oil flavor? Add olive oil. Things like olive oil packed ventresca are awesome - but they’re also a very different price range. I guess it depends - you can’t expect the $2 per can stuff to, out of the can, compete with high quality imported stuff at several times the price.

13

I think the intended use would make a difference. I’d never buy the expensive stuff for a tuna sandwich, that’s where the Kirkland excels, but I would definitely spend the coin for salade niçoise.

14

hehe… i almost posted the exact same meal examples.

Nola - is the eveleta.com site yours? If so, it’s broken - click on the View Products link.

15

Bumble Bee just added an “Italian Style” in olive oil to their Prime Filet line. It’s nowhere near as expensive as the imports, but it is tastier than the spring water packed stuff.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a Bumble Bee.