Sesame Crusted Ahi Tuna, Avocado & Orange Salad Recipe

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Impress your guests with this stunning, yet simple salad

seared ahi tuna salad recipe served with avocado and ornages

Hello we heart this readers! I am so happy to be a part of this great website and community. For those of you who are not familiar with me, I am Stefanie and I write a little blog called Sarcastic Cooking. I’ll be here every month to share some of my favorite recipes. Before we get to the recipe, here is a little bit about me:

• I love cooking. I am pursuing my passion for cooking with my blog and hope to one day make it a full-time career. Until then, sigh…one can only dream.

• I tell a lot of stories from my life that most often have to do with food or some awkward experience; there are a lot of them.

• I am newly married and live with my husband Mike and our pug Weezer in the great city of Chicago. My husband and I are addicted to Portillo’s cheeseburgers and Lou Malnati’s deep dish pizza. (I can’t be expected to create awesome dishes every night).

• I am kind of a jack of all trades. I have worked with bugs, as a health inspector, a bookkeeper, a retail manager, a fry cook, caterer…. The list goes on really. However, the one thing I am still mastering is baking.

Now, let’s get down to the food. You will come to see I like to balance something totally indulgent with something healthy and nutritious. It is all about balance and a little bit of will power, I guess.

Today, fortunately or unfortunately for you, I went with a healthy dish and made a beautiful spring salad. It’s a quickly seared sesame crusted Ahi tuna steak along with tart orange slices and creamy avocado, on top of a bed of fresh baby greens, coated in a lemon-honey-poppy seed vinaigrette. This is one of those surprisingly simple dishes that, beautifully plated, looks really impressive when served to your guests.

Sesame Crusted Ahi Tuna, Avocado, and Orange Salad

Ingredients
(Makes 2 Salads)
• 1 ½ lb. Ahi Tuna Steak
• 1 Tablespoon Sesame Oil (can also substitute olive oil)
• 1 Tablespoon Sesame Seeds
• 1 Haas Avocado
• 1 Navel Orange
• 4 Cups Mixed Baby Greens

Lemon-Honey-Poppy Seed Dressing Ingredients
• 2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
• 1 Teaspoon Lemon Zest
• ¼ Cup Honey
• ½ Teaspoon Poppy Seeds
• 1 Teaspoon Dijon Mustard
• ¼ Teaspoon Sesame Oil
• ½ Teaspoon Cider Vinegar
• A Pinch of Salt and Pepper

Directions:

1. Prepare the salad dressing. Combine the lemon juice, lemon zest, honey, poppy seeds, Dijon mustard, sesame oil, cider vinegar, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Whisk to evenly combine and set off to the side.

Sesame Crusted Ahi Tuna, Avocado & Orange Salad ingredients

2. Add the sesame or olive oil to a plate or Pyrex dish. Coat both sides of the tuna steak in the oil. Sprinkle the top side of the oil coated tuna with ½ teaspoon of sesame seeds.

Tuna steak coated with oil and sesame seeds

3. Heat a large heavy bottomed skillet over medium heat for a minute or two. Add the tuna to the hot skillet, sesame coated side down. Sprinkle the remaining sesame seeds on top of the tuna steak. Sear each side of the tuna for two minutes for a nice pink interior. If you like a more thoroughly cooked tuna, sear for four to five minutes per side.

Note: The tuna will continue to cook after you remove it from the heat.

4. Thinly slice half of an avocado for each salad. They look very pretty fanned out across the greens.

5. Slice the top and bottom off of the orange. Cut down the sides to remove all of the rind. Then carefully cut on either side of the membrane to remove each orange segment. I would say you only need about five segments per salad.

Avocado & Orange Salad ingredients

6. Give the dressing a quick whisk again. Toss two cups of mixed greens with a tablespoon or two of the dressing. Thinly slice the tuna steak into about ten slices, five per salad.

Ta-da! Spring perfection on a plate.

Sesame Crusted Ahi Tuna, Avocado & Orange Salad

This salad is great for a quick weeknight meal or a fancy weekend brunch. The tuna would also be great on the grill.

we heartsters – are you a fan of ‘fancy’ salads? What are you favorite recipes?

Author

  • sarcasticcooking

    Stefanie has done everything in food from wearing a hair net and working a fryer to inspecting classy restaurants. For now, she's just happy cooking in her kitchen alongside her pug Weezer, her husband, and most definitely accompanied by a glass of wine.

26 Comments

  1. Welcome to WHT Stefanie! You’re a perfect fit and I’m glad you’re here to bring us yummy, healthy dishes too! This looks great.. As a fellow cook/baker I love everything on this plate! That avacado looks perfect! Congrats on your recent marriage too. Tell us where you got the name, sarcasticcooking. I’m sure there is a story behind that! :)

  2. sarcasticcooking says:

    Thank you, thank you, thank you Irene! It was harder than I thought coming up with a name for the blog. The first thing that came to mind was Sarcastic Cooking because, as you will come to see, I am very sacrastic and kind of a smart ass. : )

    1. I like you already! And let it be known, I love a good smart arse! I’m one too so we’re gonna hit it off famously! I love good eats and smarty pants remarks!!

    1. sarcasticcooking says:

      Thanks for the love!

  3. Wow Stefanie – I am so impressed with this plate – it looks Top Chef worthy to me – so pretty and yummy. As a vegetarian, I won’t be making the main part of this dish, but I can not tell you how excited I am to try and make Lemon-Honey-Poppy Seed Dressing!

    I love, love, love salads with a great dressing and have discovered how much better a homemade one tastes over the ones I buy in the store. This one sounds so tasty – a little sweet, a little tangy and a hint of nuts – yum! Something tells me I’ll be pouring this over salads and veggies all summer long!

    1. sarcasticcooking says:

      Thanks Tyna! You are so right. This salad drerssing and salad minus the Ahi would be great all summer long. Maybe sub in some edamame for extra protein.

  4. Wow! That’s what I’d call delicious! I just got hungry…Thanks for posting the recipe as well, I think I1m going to give it a try this weekend!

  5. Welcome @sarcasticcooking !! You already seem to be a lovely addition to our fun team of writers. I am very excited to see more of your recipes. This one looks gorgeous and delicious!!!

    1. sarcasticcooking says:

      Thanks. I am so excited to work with all you guys too!

  6. Welcome @sarcasticcooking What a lovely dish–and colorful–that mean’s it has all the nutrients you need right? I think that citrus-inspired dressing will taste awesome with seared tuna (one of my faves!). Delish!

    1. sarcasticcooking says:

      You are soooo right! The brighter the better. : )

  7. Welcome @sarcasticcooking! So glad to have you.

    Yum – this look beautiful and I bet tastes incredible too. I could pretty much live on Tuna! I was afraid of rare/raw tuna at home for ages until the seafood person at my grocery store was like “um…why?” I’ve been having Ahi salads ever since.

    And I have to echo @tyna‘s statement – I’m excited for that dressing! Are poppy seeds hard to find? I don’t think I’ve ever seen them not attached to a bagel before.

  8. Thanks Stef! Poppy seeds should be in the spice/seasoning section. After I bought the poppy seeds, I was like “What am I going to use all these poppy seeds in?” So if they have a small size, I highly recommend getting that one.

  9. Welcome @sarcasticcooking ! Your seared ahi looks AMAZING. If I had a fish market that I really trusted I would be making this in a heartbeat.

    I actually just made that salad dressing over Easter weekend! I served it with a salad of baby greens, strawberries, and avocado. It was fantastic!
    For those looking for poppy seeds- if for some strange reason you can’t find them in the spice section, try the “ethnic” section. I’ve found some amazing Greek brands with fresh poppy seeds over the years, and there really is a difference! Its like having fresh Lebanese pistachios- you’ll never go back once you’ve had the real thing.

  10. Welcome aboard @sarcasticcooking ! I love a good salad–especially with fresh ingredients. I am very greatful for a new salad dressing recipe. A couple of years ago, we started making all of our dressings from scratch. Once you start doing that you will NEVER want to buy a bottled dressing again.

    1. Thanks for the welcome!!! I totally agree. No bottled dressings in this house.

  11. Welcome to the team, Stefanie! This is gorgeous looking and delicious sounding! I’d be proud to serve it to any group of guests. I’m not sure I can do the rare tuna either, but my husband would flip for it. And the dressing – oh man, sounds perfect for so much. Excuse the kitchen-dumb question, but what is a Haas avocado and does the type matter much?

    1. Thanks for the welcome. You can always cook the tuna steak medium well so it is just a hint of pink in the middle. Make a slow transition to a rarer tuna steak. It doesn’t matter what type of avocado you use. Haas, was just what I had in my grocery store at the time.

  12. Made this for my hubby’s family and they flipped – even the kiddos liked it.. A rare occasion for my nephew to like anything.. niece will eat anything…really.. even dirt! LOL!

  13. It looks tasty and I also like the combination of the ingredients.

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