While Corry and I are on this restricted eating plan we eat a lot of meals with tuna; mostly tuna salad but sometimes other recipes. It is relatively low in calories, easy to make and good protein. At some point we acquired like 30 cans of tuna - I blame the frequent trips to Costco.
We were down to two cans of tuna remaining from the 30 so I figured that since Corry was on call I would make something for dinner with those cans. I searched the Cooking Light archives online for something to make that hopefully fit within our calorie count and came across a recipe for Tuna Noodle Casserole. The picture looked awesome and the ingredients didn't sound weird so I decided to give it a try.
Now, I will confess right now that I am the master of picking awful recipes off the internet. If there is one bad recipe online then I will find it and decide to make it. Just say tootsie roll brownies in my house and everyone will agree with this statement. (I was on a sodium restricted diet for one of the radiation treatments that I had to do as a follow up to having my thyroid removed. We found this recipe for a brownie with no salt that turned into like a tootsie roll consistency. Bad.)
Because of these awful recipe experiences, I have learned to not only read through the recipe for 'weird' ingredients - things that seem out of place that might turn out bad. Too much salt, baking powder instead of soda, etc. I have also learned to read through the comments on the recipe. I have learned many gems through just reading through the first few comments. Often times people will post their comment after they have made the recipe once and it was awful, so they remade it with changes and document those changes. This is where you pick up that you might need to add spice to a bland recipe, that you might want to cook your ground beef before just putting it into the oven, etc.
Back to this Tuna Noodle Casserole... the comments said that the original recipe was bland so that you might want to add some extra salt and spice(s) while you were cooking it. Noted. Since it came from Cooking Light I knew that it would say do not add salt while you were cooking the pasta so I figured that could be a bit of the problem. It was not. Corry added his Cajun spice blend to his bowl and said that it was good, but I think that he was just being nice, even though I told him that he could eat something else and I wouldn't be upset. I added salt, pepper, garlic powder, and seasoning salt and it still didn't taste okay to me. I will post the recipe exactly as written. Try it if you dare.
Tuna Noodle Casserole
8 ozs pasta
1/2 medium onion
1/4 cup carrots, diced or shredded
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp flour
2 3/4 cups fat free milk
4 ozs low fat cream cheese
2 tbsp dijon mustard
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 pepper
1 cup green peas
1/2 cup Parmesan, divided
10 ounces Tuna
Cook pasta according to directions on box and drain. Saute olive oil, carrots and onion over medium heat for approximately 6 minutes or until carrots are softened. Add flour and cook for one minute, stirring constantly. Add milk, stirring constantly for approximately 6 minutes. Mixture will become thickened. After thickened, add cream cheese, Dijon, salt and pepper. Continue stirring until well mixed, about 3-4 minutes. Remove from heat. Add pasta, peas, tuna, and 1/4 cup Parmesan. Mix well and add to greased pan. Top with remaining Parmesan and heat under broiler approximately 5 minutes.
Each serving is 1 1/3 cups and is approximately 475 calories. Let me say that it was a decent meal. It wasn't great by any means and it required too many modifications to make again to try out different combinations of flavors. There was WAY too much dijon mustard, so if you do anything, cut that down significantly. I am hoping to find a good recipe for a tuna casserole at some point that doesn't contain like 1,000 calories or more per serving.
Please share if you have a good recipe.
- Sara
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