One thing I stress to many of my clients is having a fall back plan! When plan A and maybe even plan B don’t pan out because life happens, you can still have a healthy and satisfying meal to fall back on. This fall back plan can be many things such as frozen fish that doesn’t have to be thawed before cooking in the oven, minute rice, or frozen vegetables; things that can sit in your kitchen for a while and don’t take much preparation. What are some of your fallback meals or foods?
Canned tuna is one of those fallback foods for me because it can sit in my cupboard for months without going bad, it is super easy to prepare, healthy, affordable, and satisfying! My go-to tuna recipe, no mayo required tuna salad, is below. It’s my favorite, easy meal when I have a ripe avocado.
Avocado Tuna Salad
Serves: 1
Total time: 5 minutes
Ingredients
- ½ ripe avocado
- 1 (4-5 ounce) can of tuna in water (skipjack is my go-to because it is a smaller species of tuna and thus has less mercury than the more popular albacore)
- 2 tablespoons plain Greek yogurt
- ½ tablespoon mustard
- Dried or fresh parsley
- Garlic powder
- Salt and pepper
Method
1. Cut the avocado in half, discard seed/pit, score, and scoop ½ avocado into a bowl. Use a fork to mash the avocado into a creamy texture. Leave some chunks if you like. (Tightly cover unused half in plastic wrap and put in fridge for later use.)
2. Open the can of tuna, drain water, and poor tuna into bowl with avocado (my dog loves when I make tuna salad because I always poor the tuna water over a scoop of his dry kibble).
3. Mix remaining ingredients into bowl; I never measure the seasonings but usually add just a smidge of garlic powder and salt with a couple shakes of dried parsley and pepper.
4. Mix well
5. Enjoy with crackers.
Options
-Add diced celery and/or onion
-Leave out mustard
-Experiment with different seasonings or fresh herbs (maybe paprika, cayenne if you like spicy, or dill)
-Use dairy free yogurt- just make sure it is plain and unsweetened
-Use a whole avocado for a higher calorie meal
-Put on toast or make a sandwich
-Scoop it with celery sticks or sliced cucumber for a low-carbohydrate option