Jimmy John's Vs Subway Vs Jersey Mike's: Which Chain Makes The Best Tuna Sub?

Sub, hero, hoagie, grinder — whatever you call it, few lunches hit the spot quite like a deli sandwich. Everyone's got their go-to sub that they fantasize about when the mid-day tummy rumbles start hitting. For me, tuna salad is the only option when it's time to order a sandwich from a bodega or deli. Sure, it may be a little bit dated, but that's kind of what makes it so great. It's timeless.

Like an Italian sub or a classic ham-and-cheese, tuna is a fan favorite. But it's also one of the easiest subs to get wrong, since it doesn't rely on pre-made salty deli meat and plenty of cheese. It starts out as a bland can of fish and requires skill and a traditional recipe that's still unique enough to make it memorable. It's a delicate balance, really.

I ordered sandwiches from three of the nation's most iconic sandwich chains — Jimmy John's, Subway, and Jersey Mike's — to find which of these three does it best. I ordered identical tuna subs with classic fixings and pit the three sammies against one another in the ultimate fishy taste-test. Don't worry — as a tuna purist and former deli employee, I didn't hold back on my criticisms or my praise, so you can bet your baguette that the best chain for a tuna sub is a sure-fire winner.

Prices are as of the date of publication and may vary based on region.

To accurately and fairly find the best tuna sub from three top sandwich chains, I tried each when it was fresh and ordered the sandwiches so they were identical to one another. Along with tuna salad, I opted for tomato, onion, and pickles on each and chose a classic white bread. I chose to forego lettuce since at least one of these three chains gets its lettuce from the brand tied to the 2026 cyclosporiasis outbreak, which is ongoing at the time of writing.

I tried each sandwich as is. I didn't just determine the quality of the tuna salad itself, although the tuna salad's flavor and perceived quality played a major role in my judgments. Ultimately, I judged each sub based on how it worked as a cohesive meal, meaning the quality of bread and the toppings also factored into my decision.

To pick the top sandwich, I didn't consider which chain serves a healthier tuna sub, since nutrition is largely subjective. Although I mentioned the prices of the sandwiches in some instances, I didn't base my ranking on cost, though value still played a minor role in my final decision. I was looking for the best-tasting sub overall, and which one customers were most likely to return to.

Jimmy John's tuna sub was by far the largest of the three. The first thing I noticed about this sandwich was the hollowed-out bread. Honestly, I was taken aback at first — I didn't really know how to feel. However, I ended up loving this little sandwich quirk. One of my biggest sub pet peeves is when the bread is extra thick and spongy, to the point where every bite is about 80% bread. The Jimmy John's scoop-out method kept every bite perfectly balanced.

Even though I loved the scooped-out loaf, I almost wished there was a little bit more bread, because it was delicious. The outer layer was nice and crispy and had a toasty, buttery flavor, while the softer parts had a melt-in-your-mouth texture. As for the tuna, it had an excellent ratio of flaky chunks to smooth, creamy bits. The vegetables were minced extra-fine but still provided a decent crunch, making this tuna salad nostalgic but still unique enough to warrant a copycat recipe. It clearly wasn't top-tier white albacore tuna, but it tasted far from bottom-of-the-barrel quality.

The pickles — which were tangy and crisp, like real NYC deli pickles — were a great addition to the tuna and easily the best pickles of the three sandwiches. Thick-cut tomatoes and plenty of white onion gave the sandwich all the sweetness and umami essence that it needed to be incredibly well-rounded and unique, but still a classic deli sub.

I tried really hard not to let its aesthetics cloud my judgment here, but that was pretty hard to avoid with this disastrous-looking sandwich. This tuna sub looked like it was dropped from the roof of a 15-story building after someone with a vendetta against sea creatures stomped on it. Nevertheless, I'm not above a squishy sandwich, so I still had some hope.

I was wrong. Subway's tuna salad is bland and much wetter and mushier than I would have liked. There was a time when I would actually strive to make my homemade tuna salad taste like Subway's, but those days are long gone. It was obvious that cheap, pink tuna makes up all (or at least the bulk of) the chain's sandwich. The toppings were plentiful but didn't do much to make the sandwich anything but boring — especially the pickles, which were almost as soggy and bland as the tuna salad.

Believe it or not, the bread was probably the worst part of this sub. Remember that old yoga mat-bread controversy at Subway? Basically, some sleuths found a chemical that was present in the chain's bread that also existed in things like shoe rubber and yoga mats. But the reason it likely stuck with the public so much was that chewing on Subway bread really does feel like gnawing on gym equipment. I'm not sure what's gotten into Subway these days (or maybe we're all just getting older and our palates are gradually evolving), but America's most ubiquitous sandwich spot should probably throw in the towel.

My first impression of this sandwich was that it really resembled a classic deli sub. The ratio of tuna salad and toppings was solid, and everything was distributed evenly so there was a good amount of each ingredient in every bite. However, the bread really threw me off here. It was soft and spongy but very bland, and it committed the biggest cardinal sin sub bread can make: It made up the majority of each bite.

As for the star of the sub, the tuna, I was mostly pretty underwhelmed. Jersey Mike's uses a mix of chunk light and albacore in its subs, but all I really tasted was the chunk light, which is the cheaper, mushier, and fishier-tasting of the two tuna varieties. The sub could have used a bit more mayo to mask the cheap flavor, and maybe a little more celery to give it some crunch.

The toppings were top-notch for a chain sandwich and somewhat made up for the boring salad. I really enjoyed the crunchy, extra-large pickle slices, which were plentiful, and the perfect amount of onion, which did not overwhelm the sandwich but instead gave it an umami upgrade. The tomatoes were juicy, full of flavor, and dark red — I don't know about you, but those bland pink tomatoes always ruin a sandwich for me. As a whole, I think this sub would have fared well with a crunchy companion in the form of potato or tortilla chips; its one-note texture and lack of anything memorable really sealed its fate.

Between Jimmy John's, Subway, and Jersey Mike's, the best tuna sub was (drumroll, please) ... Jimmy John's — and honestly, it wasn't even close. Between the scooped, buttery-tasting bread, high-quality tuna salad, and crisp veggies, this classic sandwich was the best by a mile.

Other than being by far my favorite bread between the three sandwiches, what really sold me was the varied texture of the tuna salad. Instead of being all fish mush (two gross words paired together), it actually had the flavor and texture of real fillets. It wasn't a particularly unique recipe, but that's why I liked it; it was comforting and nostalgic, the way a tuna sandwich should be. Oh, and I can't forget to bring it back to those pickles — I could plow through an entire jar of those fresh, zesty slices.

Although I didn't factor price into my final judgments of these sandwiches, I still think it's worth noting that Jersey Mike's (small) sub cost me nearly $11, and that was for the sandwich alone — no drinks, sides, or anything else. Meanwhile, Subway's mediocre 6-inch sub was over $6 (a far cry from the days of the $5 footlong). These chain sandwiches just aren't worth the money, while Jimmy John's extra-large sub — at about $8.50 — felt like a much better value.