Italian Tuna Salad
Amelia Freer shares her healthy tuna salad from her cookbook, Nourish & Glow. This quick recipe makes for a delicious light lunch and can be enjoyed as part of Amelia's 10-day plan.
Introduction
This super-simple salad is the type of thing that I eat most days. It can be thrown together in minutes from ingredients I almost always have lying around, and yet still packs both a nutritional and flavour punch. Delicious.
Ingredients
| 100g | sugar snap peas (or fine green beans) |
| 1 tbsp | pine nuts (you could also use sunflower seeds) |
| 100g | responsibly sourced tinned or jarred tuna |
| 8-10 | black olives |
| ½ | of a red pepper, deseeded and sliced |
| ¼ | of a red onion |
| 3 | sun-dried tomatoes, drained and chopped |
| a big handful | of salad leaves (I love Little Gem or rocket here) |
| a few | extra basil leaves, for flavour (optional) |
| 1 tsp | capers (optional) |
| For the pesto: | |
| 2 tbsp | olive oil |
| ½ | lemon, juice |
| 2 tbsp | fresh basil leaves |
| 2 tbsp | fresh parsley leaves |
| 1 tbsp | pine nuts (or sunflower seeds) |
| a good pinch | of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper |
Method
Blanch the sugar snap peas by boiling or steaming them or 1-2 minutes. Drain immediately, then place under running cold water for a few seconds to stop them cooking.
If you like, you could also toast the pine nuts for a minute or so in a frying pan over a medium heat to give them a little extra colour. You could skip this step if you are pressed for time.
Put all the pesto ingredients into a small blender and blend for a minute or so, until well combined. If it looks a little dry, add an extra squeeze of lemon juice. This step can be done ahead of time – just put the pesto into a little jar, screw the lid on and leave in the fridge overnight.
When you are ready to make the salad, pile all the salad ingredients on to a plate, sprinkle with the capers and pine nuts and drizzle over some pesto.
