Tuna salad for sandwiches! You’d think this was so simple no recipe was required. You might be right… or you might want a few tips on making sure it fits well into a Trim Healthy Mama FP (fuel pull) meal… or even an E (energizing), as shown.
Canned tuna is a great protein source that is lean enough to fall into a fuel pull category. This means it’s very versatile, as you can use it in an S meal with added fats, or you can keep it in the low-fat territories of FP or E. As you may have noticed lately, I’m working hard on building up my repertoire of lower fat meals, so I’ve been considering protein sources like tuna with a contemplative eye!
Best of all, canned tuna can be picked up on sale and keeps most of forever, so it’s great to keep in the pantry. You probably also have the other ingredients: pickles, mayo, plain low-fat yogurt, and possibly Light Laughing Cow Cheese, so whipping this up for a quick snack or meal can happen any time without a special grocery run!
I also have been keeping brown rice cakes (ingredients: brown rice and salt) on hand since discovering recently what a great sandwich base they are for those who need or wish to be gluten-free. Sprouted and true sourdough breads are definitely allowed on THM, but I found I was becoming too dependent on them and weight loss was stalling. Now, I have a lot of my sandwiches on brown rice cakes instead for a delicious alternative.
Here are a few of the ingredients gathered together, ready to go. So… let’s get started!
Recipe: Tuna Salad
(And here’s my obligatory disclosure that any product links might be affiliate links. Clicking on them doesn’t cost you a penny more, and I get a small percentage of any sales.)
Serves 2
• 1 can tuna packed in water. Choose “pole & line” caught tuna if possible – it’s a more environmentally friendly choice. Drain the can (my cats love tuna juice!) and dump the tuna into a bowl.
• about 2 teaspoons mayonnaise. Have a look at the nutritional profile of your mayo. This will determine how much mayo you can put into the mix. Hellmans olive oil mayo is at 5 grams per tablespoon, so you can use one tablespoon. The one in the photo, Chosen avocado mayo, is at 11 grams fat per tablespoon, so 1-2 teaspoons is your limit here to stay within THM’s low-fat guidelines. Remember one can of tuna is two servings (two meals) and plan your fat count accordingly.
• 2 tablespoons of nonfat Greek yogurt, or the amount needed to moisten the tuna/mayo combo as you like it
• about 2 tablespoons chopped okra pickles – Dill pickles are fine if you don’t have okra pickles.
Mix the above together. You can add a little pickle juice for added moisture if you like. If you’re making lunch for one, put half the tuna mix in a container in the fridge for tomorrow! And use 2 rice cakes and 1 wedge of Light Laughing Cow Cheese (below) for today’s portion.
Take
• 4 brown rice cakes, and divide
• 2 wedges of Light Laughing Cow Cheese (about 2.5 grams of fat, total) and spread over the rice cakes (1/2 wedge per rice cake)
Spoon 1/4 of the total tuna mix on each rice cake.
Depending on how many grams of carbs your rice cakes have (mine have 8 each), you will probably need an additional carb source to make a solid E meal. On this particular day I had a few “cutie” oranges in the fridge, so added two of those to my plate. Another day I ate half a medium-sized apple with my tuna salad sandwiches.
You could also put the tuna salad between two slices of on-plan sprouted or sourdough bread (still an E meal), or you could roll some tuna salad in wonder wraps to stay in FP mode, in which case you won’t want to add fruit to your plate. Either way, don’t forget to add some veggies to round out your meal!
Love reading fiction? How about Christian romance? Raindrops on Radishes features a plus-size heroine in a battle for her backyard with the extremely fit urban farmer next door! (Psst: her journey to health is based on Trim Healthy Mama…)
Tuna Salad is sandwich fixings the heroine, Sadie, would enjoy in her Trim Healthy Mama story!
Please Note: I am not an authorized Trim Healthy Mama coach or blogger, although I play one in fiction…
