If you are stressing about serving made from scratch elaborate dinners to your family every night, please stop! In the last year, I have burnt out many times mainly due to non-stop cooking of 3 meals every day. No sandwiches for lunch, no pizza pockets for dinner or chocolate milk for a snack. All from scratch and better be higher in protein because if not, I will get fat. Yeah, and work out 5 days a week and run a full-time business while raising 2 kids.
In the past few months, I realized every dinner can’t be fabulous but still can be made with real food and healthy. For example, healthy tuna melt recipe – take toasted whole grain English muffin or bagel (preferably organic), top with wild sustainably caught tuna, organic cheese and broil until melted. Dinner is served and everyone is happy. Or how about 2 minute healthy instant ramen?
My recipe is very simple because kids like simple tuna salad and we are talking about making simple dinner. I also prefer adding organic cream cheese instead of mayo, so the taste of fish is not overpowered. Not to mentioned it is twice less calories.
Serving tuna melt on English muffin with sliced fresh vegetables makes it a complete meal – protein, complex carbs and fat (a little organic dairy fat is totally fine). No kid will say no unless he doesn’t like tuna. I didn’t add tomato slices to my sandwich but have seen many Google images showing them. Up to you.
To save on numerous grocery trips, stock your freezer with shredded cheese (yes, you can freeze cheese) and variety of breads (English muffins, bagels, tortillas). Kids love variety of bread products and they love bread! Keep a few cans of fish in the pantry. That’s it. And if you are looking for more canned tuna recipe ideas, check out my tuna salad with avocado and mango, and tuna zucchini fritters recipes.
Enjoy!
PrintHealthy Tuna Melt Recipe
Healthy Tuna Melt Recipe with wild tuna, a bit of cream cheese and no mayo, served on whole grain English muffin.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 6 minutes
- Total Time: 11 minutes
- Yield: 2 servings 1x
Ingredients
- 6 oz can tuna packed in water, drained
- 3 tbsp cream cheese
- Pinch of salt
- Pinch of ground black pepper
- Pinch of garlic powder
- 2 whole grain English muffins, bagels or 4 bread slices
- 1/4 cup shredded any hard cheese, divided
- Green onions, chopped (optional)
Instructions
- In a small bowl, add tuna, cream cheese, salt, pepper and garlic powder; mix with a fork.
- Cut English muffins or bagels in half and toast. Divide tuna mixture between 4 toasts, top with 1 tbsp cheese, place on baking sheet and broil on High for 6 – 7 minutes or until cheese is melted and browned a bit.
- Serve immediately with soup, salad or vegetables.
Did you make this recipe? Please give it a star rating in the comments.
Wow, what a great alternative to my “typical” tuna salad recipe. This was delicious and we didn’t miss the mayo.
★★★★★
Fantastic! Glad you enjoyed the recipe, Lindsay.
Made this for my kids for lunch. They loved it!
★★★★★
Never froze cheese before but sounds like a good tip. Do you freeze it any special way? Do you have to defrost it before adding it to dishes and meals or just add it frozen as it is? (Sorry for so many questions)
I freeze shredded cheese in a gallon size Ziploc bags. No special instructions. Then I transfer as much as I need to a glass container and keep refrigerated for a week or two. You can add it frozen to dishes that will be cooked. I also froze buffalo mozzarella before and it was perfectly fine.
Yum these look good. I have never thought about added cream cheese rather than mayonnaise into my tuna melts, – this is a great tip that I will remember for later.