We normally love eating at Panera, but that doesn’t mean that everything on the menu is a hit. In fact, Tasting Table recently taste-tested and ranked staple menu items and found 17 items to avoid ordering at Panera. To make the list, we also considered our own experience working at Panera locations, as well as online customer reviews.
When ranking 16 sandwiches at Panera Bread, we found the tuna sandwich to be one of the most disappointing. A good tuna sandwich has to taste bright, fresh, and tangy and have a good balance of ingredients and textures. It should never taste old, mushy, or under-seasoned. Unfortunately, the Panera tuna salad is mostly just plain boring. According to the website, the standard tuna sandwich is made from tuna salad on country rustic sourdough bread with mixed greens, sliced tomatoes, and salt and pepper. We found it to be uninspiring and forgettable. It would be cheaper (and tastier) to make your own tuna sandwich at home rather than spending $10 or more on this one.
Panera Bread announced its biggest menu change in history in February 2024, with the company changing the recipe for its tuna sandwich and several other menu staples and retiring some of its other beloved favorites, like its Napa Almond Chicken Salad sandwich. On Facebook, the company said, “If you enjoyed the Napa Almond Chicken Salad Sandwich, we think you’ll love our Tuna Salad Sandwich or the Chipotle Chicken Avo Melt.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case for most customers.
What customers are saying about Panera’s new tuna sandwich
Reviews for Panera Bread’s new tuna sandwich are mixed, but many customers say that the changes made to the original tuna salad recipe are bad. While the previous tuna salad recipe contained onion and pickles, the new recipe omits those ingredients and replaces them with bread crumbs and vinegar. The result is a sandwich that tastes more preserved than fresh.
Customers claim that the new sandwich is overpriced, small, and tasteless. One person on Reddit said, “I used to be a baker at Panera, with the menu update they’re removing any hint of their ‘fresh, real ingredients’ guarentee [sic]. They’re actively getting rid of bakers nationwide and charging people the same price for mass produced bread and cheaper ingredients.” Another said, “Hate the new recipe.”
A customer on Facebook said, “They didn’t just revamp the menu, they changed everything for the worse. If you are attempting to slow the loss of customers, taking away people’s favorite items doesn’t seem like a good idea.” Luckily, if you miss the original Panera tuna sandwich, there are plenty of copycat recipes floating around, so it’s easy to create your own spruced-up tuna salad recipe. You can also use a Panera Bread menu hack to try to customize the new tuna salad to your personal taste.
