I recently acquired 4lbs of canned tuna. It's not several little cans, all 4 pounds are in one giant can. So if I open it, I should use it all. I'm in a 2 person household and while I love tuna, my husband does not. So the responsibility of eating it all falls to me. I usually will have tuna mixed with mayo and garlic and use it as a paste on crackers but I can only get so far with that. I'm open to any ideas or recipes!
Ideas for using up four(4) pounds of tuna?
byu/mybackhurty inFrugal
Posted by mybackhurty
25 Comments
Tuna casserole? Make a big batch and portion to individual meals for lunches
Tuna croquettes and tuna noodle casserole
I haven’t tried it, but it would probably freeze well.
Salad nicoise is a great easy dinner with canned tuna! Just throw your tuna on some greens with some hard boiled egg, some nuts, goat/sheep cheese, or raisins and add some vinaigrette. Hard to go wrong.
Fish cakes, fried or baked and frozen for later use.
Tuna noodle casserole
Fry with tomatoes, onions and seasonings and eat with bread or over rice
Tuna salad sandwich
Drained and in salad
Baked into pastry as hand pies
Tuna noodle casserole is absolutely delicious when seasoned well and I’ve found it freezes well enough.
Check your pantry for ingredients, but I would divide it. Make tuna burgers with part of it, and a big tuna noodle casserole with some (both will freeze well in portions) and have a nice tuna and cracker snack to celebrate your frugality!
First I thought make tuna casserole and freeze it, but if you drain any water or oil from the tuna and seal in freezer bags with as little air as possible you will be able to keep that tuna fine and in portions for quite some time (check yourself for how long, but a lot of that comes down to how wet or dry it is and how good you pack it for freezing).
It’s labor intensive and doesn’t use much of the tuna, but I like a tomato stuffed with tuna salad, topped with a slice of cheese, then put under a broiler.
Hmm I wonder if stuffed bell peppers would work with tuna?
Vacuum seal little portions and freeze it. I mix it with teriyaki sauce and use it in different sushi rolls.
I like canned tuna in stir fry/rice bowls and pasta (pasta salad, tuna casserole, or just thrown it into whatever pasta I’m making, even mac & cheese). Could also be good for stuffing things, like stuffed zucchini or mushrooms or even peppers. Tuna salad sandwiches or tuna grilled cheese. I would do a variety of these things for the first few days and then do a big casserole or whatever after that.
I saw a recipe for “bread” using tuna, eggs and baking powder, apparently it’s good and I would imagine can be frozen.
Too Much Tuna
Nice, tuna is high in protein. I would make some subs like those at Subway
**Masala Tuna (recipe for about 1 lb tuna) EDIT TO SAY: all the non-tuna lovers in my house love this, especially when served with cracked-pepper and olive oil triscuits**
Start cooking in large frying pan over med-high heat
1 large (not huge) sweet onion chopped in food processor
1 T olive oil
When cooked and starting to brown (about 10 mins), add
1 T minced garlic
1 T ginger paste
Chop the following in food processor and add to above after garlic has simmered for about 1 minute:
1 large tomato
small bunch of cilantro
Add to mixture:
1 t garam masala
1 t turmeric
½ t salt
1 lb tuna
Simmer until liquid has started to disappear
Tuna croquettes
Pasta al Tonno! My friend in Germany had a very easy version where she cooked it with tomato paste, a few spices, and a little bit of lemon juice. It was really good and isn’t heavy on tuna flavor, so your husband might like it too.
Freeze it in smaller portions.
Tuna Mac salad or inside out tuna melts ( like a stuffed pepper but with a tomato , tuna salad ,topped with cheese and baked )
I used to put tuna and broccoli in mac and cheese for a cheap and tasty dinner
As opposed to freezing some in portion sizes ?
Freeze the unused tuna.
So this is my favorite quick tuna recipe which i can eat every night. I make a very dill pickle heavy tuna salad then I put that on a cheesy quesadilla . So it’s like a tuna melt quesodilla ..
If you are familiar with the Pinterest application, it offers a vast collection of recipes. You may find a multitude of options by entering “tuna recipes” into the search bar. Another good app is SideChef, the same deal but just for food.
Something that my mom always made when I was a kid that carried over into the “Something I just have to make sometimes” category is tuna pasta.
Stir together a box of cooked seashell pasta (or whatever shape, but shells works well with the peas, 2 (or more) regular cans worth of drained tuna, a can of drained green peas, mayo, salt and pepper to taste. It’s great when it’s fresh and great leftover from the fridge.
Tuna cakes, like fish or crab cakes, make the patties and freeze them between parchment sheets for later.