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In my house, we call this the fridge clean-out salad, aka the meal prep tangy chopped tuna salad.

With tons of flavors and chopping, you will want to pull out your vegetable chopper for this one! It is a good way to get rid of jars that have small amounts left of each ingredient.

This recipe is salty, tangy, creamy, and crunchy. It makes the perfect meal prep lunch or dip!

woman's hand holding a cracker with tuna salad on the cracker over a bowl filled with salad

This tuna salad is the perfect addition to any meal prep lineup – it makes a perfect lunch to scoop up with crackers while on the go and even a great dip when you have company.

While I love a more basic tuna salad, this one really hits the spot when it comes to texture and taste! This salad is bulked up with pickled and canned veggies, fresh veggies, and is made creamy with cottage cheese and feta cheese.

My favorite part about it is how filling this salad actually is. It serves more people if you are looking for an easy lunch.

Why you’ll love this Meal Prep Tangy Chopped Tuna Salad

Tasty – This salad is one of my favorites because of the variety of tastes and textures.

Versatile – This is dependent on what you have in your fridge – add as little or as much of an ingredient you want!

Ingredients you have on hand – This is where the fun starts! If you don’t have an ingredient – that’s ok! You add what you already have to this tuna salad!

Great for weekly meal prep – If it is time to “clean the fridge out”, and you are looking to lunch prep for the week, then this chopped tuna salad is perfect for that!

Supplies needed to make Meal Prep Tangy Chopped Tuna Salad

I love this wooden salad bowl – it’s so pretty y’all!
Cutting board and knife if you aren’t using a vegetable chopper (this isn’t the exact one I use because I purchased mine is 2017 but this one is similar)
Measuring spoons to measure your seasonings
Measuring cup to measure your mayo, cottage cheese, feta cheese, and chopped veggies

Ingredients

a wooden bowl on a bright white marble surface showing each ingredient

a wooden bowl on a bright white marble surface showing each additional ingredient

Canned Tuna – My house tends to keep canned tuna in the cabinets for quick lunches during busy weekdays.

Chopped Veggies – There are so many chopped pickled veggies in this salad adding so much versatility and flavor.

Cucumbers – It adds a bit of freshness and texture.

Canned Chickpeas – We love chickpeas around here, so it just made sense to put it in this chopped salad for added texture!

Mayo, Feta, and Cottage cheese – I used full fat ingredients for this lineup because it adds a depth of creaminess to the salad

Seasonings – Seasonings were used minimally with this salad and you”ll want to salt to taste!

The full recipe, along with the ingredients, can be found below.

How to make Meal Prep Tangy Chopped Tuna Salad

a wooden bowl on a bright white marble surface showing each ingredient that goes into the salad

First, drain and rinse your chickpeas and drain all four of your cans of tuna completely of their juices. Flake the tuna from your can using a fork into your salad bowl. You can add your chickpeas now, too!

Then, chop all of your jarred ingredients as well as your cucumbers to whatever size you prefer for your salad. This is a lot of chopping so we love using our vegetable chopper for this job!

Next, measure out and add your feta, mayo, and cottage cheese and add it directly to your salad bowl.

Finally, add in your garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper. Mix all of your ingredients well!

a wooden bowl full of tuna salad on a white marble countertop

Now is when you’ll want to taste it and adjust your seasonings (my family loves extra black pepper in theirs).

woman holding a cracker above a bowl of tuna salad

Tips

If you don’t love olives – don’t add them! This chopped tuna salad is completely customizable to your family’s taste!
If you don’t love cottage cheese (I get it!), you can replace it with Greek yogurt instead. This will change the flavor slightly (adding in some more tangy flavor), but still add a creaminess and protein to the salad.
Serve in a lettuce wrap, on a cracker, or toasted sourdough with lettuce and tomato.
No need to go out and purchase all of these ingredients. The purpose of this salad is to use the leftover pieces of pickled veggies in your fridge to make a big salad dip to be enjoyed on sandwiches or with crackers. With the addition of mayo, cheese, and cottage cheese, you get a tangy and creamy salad perfect for lunches or to enjoy as a snack.

FAQs

The key ingredients are tuna, chickpeas, kalamata and green olives, pickled jalapeños, banana peppers, cottage cheese, feta cheese, mayo, and spices and seasonings.

Store your salad in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. It can be enjoyed immediately but does get better if allowed to sit in the refrigerator for the first few hours after mixing all of the ingredients together.

The options are pretty endless here!

You could use anything pickled or fresh that you like! Here is what we like in this type of salad, depending on what we have on hand – black olives, kalamata olives, green olives, pimentos, pickles, white beans, chickpeas, cucumbers, tomatoes, fire roasted peppers, fresh peppers, fresh jalapeños, sweet peppers, cheeses of almost any kind, fresh banana peppers, pickled banana peppers, sweet pickles, pickled carrots, fresh carrots, and more!

The possibilities are truly endless and there are no hard or fast rules with this salad. You just use what you have on hand!

Recipe

Meal Prep Tangy Chopped Tuna Salad

Salty, tangy, everything-goes-in-the-bowl tuna salad is a great dip or meal prep lunch. It also makes a great appetizer! Prep it for the week ahead for an easy, tasty lunch or snack!

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 45

Total Time 45

Course lunch, meal prep, Salad, Snack

Cuisine Mediterranean

Servings 8

Ingredients

4 5 oz Cans Tuna Drained
1 15 oz Can Chickpeas Drained
⅔ cup Kalamata Olives Chopped
⅔ cup Green Olives Chopped
⅔ cup Banana Peppers Chopped
⅔ cup Pickled Jalapeños Chopped
¼ cup Roasted Red Peppers Chopped
½ cup Mayo
½ cup Cottage Cheese
8 oz Feta Cheese Crumbled
½ tsp Onion Powder
½ tsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp Red Chili Flakes (we like it spicy!)
salt + pepper to taste

Instructions

Drain and rinse your can of chickpeas. Add your chickpeas to your salad bowl. No need to pat dry!
Drain all four cans of tuna of their juices and your tuna to your salad bowl. I like to flake the tuna with a fork a bit to make it easier to mix later.
Chop all of your veggies – both jarred and fresh! Make them as small or as large as you like. This is where I bring in my nifty chopper because it makes everything perfectly chopped!
Measure out and add your cottage cheese, mayo, and feta cheese and add them to your salad bowl.
Now, add all of your seasonings and spices, to your salad bowl.
Mix everything well and enjoy!
I like to eat this salad on a cracker but it would be delicious on toasted bread with some lettuce and tomato, too!

Notes

After mixing your salad, store in an air tight container, and place in the fridge for a few hours. You can enjoy this immediately, but letting those flavors come together really brings this salad over the top!
Always salt and pepper to taste when you are working with pickled ingredients due to the varying salt levels in each one.
If you don’t love cottage cheese, no problem! Just replace the cottage cheese with a bit of full fat Greek yogurt.
Keep this salad in an air tight container for up to four days.
Great in a lettuce wrap, with crackers, in a tortilla, or one toasted bread with lettuce and tomatoes!
Perfect for weekly lunch meal prep.