Martha Stewart's Crave-Worthy Upgrade For Tuna Salad

While apples might be the forbidden fruit in ancient literature, for Martha Stewart, they're the not-so-fancy fruit that turns a tuna salad sandwich into something phenomenal. Unlike star fruit or kiwis or any number of exotic sweet treats you'll occasionally find in the produce aisle each season, apples can be found in the grocery store all year round. Because of this, it can be easy to become complacent about what the simple, sweet, and crunchy apple does for the tuna sandwich, which is umami through and through. Stewart's addition of apples to her tuna salad, which she features on her website, serves some immediate functions. Although she does also include sliced celery in her recipe, her decision to cut up quarter-inch slices of apple and add them to her tuna salad recipe amps up the crunch and texture factors in the sandwich.

However, unlike the celery, which is salty and a little closer in spirit to the umami flavors found in the tuna, the apple falls on the opposite side of the flavor tree. In the same way that adding coffee to chocolate recipes makes a dish taste more like chocolate than the chocolate alone will, the sweetness of the fruit enhances the savory in the tuna by bringing in the fish's culinary opposite from a flavor standpoint. The sugar in the apples may even go as far as "turning on" the savory flavor, effectively making the tuna even umami-er, so to speak.

Martha Stewart's tuna recipe oozes with an abundance of umami flavors — and not just from the tuna. She also adds a couple of tablespoons of chopped basil, mayo, and freshly ground pepper. (Incidentally, basil also happens to be one of the best choices for enhancing tuna recipes, so Ms. Stewart earns double flavor brownie points here.)

Her sandwich recipe additionally boasts a variety of sour or salty flavors, too, like lemon, celery, and the sourdough bread she champions for use in this dish. In fact, salt is considered a key component of a good sourdough bread recipe. Salty or sour tastes activate the saliva mechanism in the mouth, heightening the flavors of foods. No wonder Stewart puts a whole apple — McIntosh or Gala, preferably — in the recipe. The apple has its work cut out for it, balancing all those disparate flavors and enhancing their deliciousness in the process. And if the tuna in the recipe winds up being too, well, fishy, the sugar in the apples comes to the rescue in that case as well. You can't beat the effects of apple sugar in this recipe.

Martha Stewart's preference for sweet and savory flavor combos doesn't stop with this sandwich. Her website features a number of dishes that call for sweet and savory flavor combinations, and quite a number of them feature apples as well. These recipes include Brussels sprouts with bacon and apple, apple-butternut squash soup, and a refreshing kale and apple salad.

If you're making lunch alongside Ms. Stewart, metaphorically speaking, it's hard to go wrong with this tuna sandwich. It's tasty on its own and flavorful enough to pair with a simple soup, like a creamy roasted tomato soup. Additionally, tuna salad is pretty flexible, meaning that if there's something about Martha Stewart's recipe you'd like to change or enhance, you can. Even a recipe as excellent as Stewart's deserves, indeed calls for, some enhancing every now and again.

If you're keen on trying her recipe but want to upgrade her tuna salad by adding some crunchy sweetness to it, red or yellow peppers, sweet red onions, kernels of fresh corn, or even crisp red grapes might work well. Substituting a cinnamon raisin bagel for the sourdough ups the sweet factor. And speaking of raisins, they'd add a burst of sweetness to the interior of the sandwich, too.

As for crunch without the sweet, try crushed walnuts or salted sunflower seeds. Walnuts, in particular, would make the tuna sandwich a flavor cousin to the Waldorf salad, given that the celebrity chef's tuna salad ingredients list also includes apples and celery, two key items in the famous apple salad. The only thing you'd be missing in this Waldorf salad sandwich is the chopped chicken. However, given that tuna is considered the chicken of the sea, it's likely that you won't mind the tuna-for-chicken flavor swap at all.