Everyone has a guilty pleasure. You know, the tub of chocolate ice cream you hide from the rest of your family and that bag of potato chips you eat when everyone else is asleep. Well, mine is canned tuna. Canned tuna packed in olive oil to be precise. Ahh… I can already smell it.

You probably think it’s pretty gross to eat tuna straight from the can, but it’s a special treat for me. My biggest complaint of tuna salads at restaurants is that they are laden with mayo, which masks instead of enhances the taste of the fish.

This tuna salad is flavorful, yet refreshing. Meaty tuna and creamy beans are tossed in a garlicky vinaigrette made of lemon juice and olive oil. A generous sprinkle of chopped parsley at the end adds some freshness and pretty green specks. You can use other fresh herbs you have on hand. Basil, tarragon and dill are all good choices.

I’ve made many different versions of this salad, topping it on a bed of spring greens or tossing it with a bowl of bow-tie pasta. Serving the salad on top of some toasted crusty bread like in a bruschetta is my favorite. It’s perfect as a light lunch or as an appetizer to a full meal.

I recently made this for Nick. (Trust me, it was hard for me to share my jar of cherished imported tuna.) To my surprise, Nick, who is usually a tuna-with-mayo kind of guy, loved the dish. He said it was satisfying and not fishy like he thought it would be. I hope you will give this a try some time. If it changed Nick’s mind about tuna, it will change yours too.