Sweet & Tangy Tuna Salad

Have you ever gone back and tried a food you remember hating as a child only to discover you now LOVE it and that your childhood self was an idiot? Well… I have. And oo was it worth it!

When I was younger, there was a long list of seemingly ordinary foods you could not get me to eat without a fight. This included hamburgers, spaghetti and quiche to name just a few. The list also happened to include my mom’s tuna salad. Not all tuna salad mind you, just hers. She would make it with grated carrots and apple chucks. Disgusting, I thought. Surely it’s slimy and repulsive and the texture is all wrong. I demanded plain tuna and she usually obliged, making a small bowl of tuna salad without all the add-ins for me. What a good mommy she is. 

Then, one day, I tried it again. Sweet carrots and apple, crunchy celery, tangy lemon. Low and behold: it was delicious! What a mistake I made all those years, eating my boring tuna salad. And I want to share the recipe with everyone else now! And as an adult, I can now also appreciate the fact that it’s super fast to make and requires minimal cleanup.

And you are doing your body a favor with this meal: The tuna salad is packed with protein (about 40 grams in one can!) and is super low in carbs and fat! If you use wild tuna, you are getting a great source of heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Plus the carrot and apple give you fiber, vitamin A and C. Carrots also contain carotenoids, an antioxidant found in plants that is associated with a range of health benefits by helping protect your cells from damage that causes aging and cancer. To read more about what antioxidants are and what they can do for us, check out this Huffington Post article.

Recipe
 
10-12 oz. (2 cans) wild albacore tuna packed in water, drained and flaked
2 celery stalks, finely diced
1 small apple, diced
2-3 spring onion, sliced
1-2 carrots, grated
1 garlic clove, pressed
Juice 1 lemon
2 T. Dijon mustard
2 T. mayonnaise or full-fat Greek yogurt
1/3-1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt or Greek yogurt
Salt & pepper (to taste)

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients together with a fork until the yogurt is even distributed. Serve on a sandwich, with pita bread, in a wrap or on a salad like I did. I choose to have it on a bed of baby spinach with sliced red pepper for an added punch of color.