Healthy Tuna Pasta Salad

You will also love my Healthy Tuna Pasta Bake

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As the weather gets hotter I turn to easy recipes that are filling yet light. This colourful Mexican-style pasta salad ticks all the boxes for me!

• Healthy but filling
• A great Slimming World lunch with minor tweaks
• Delicious as leftovers
• Perfect for picnics, lunchboxes or BBQs
• Kid friendly

Tuna Pasta Salad Ingredients

Here’s what you will need – but feel free to add your own personal touch! The only stipulation I have is to use the best quality tuna you can find.

This recipe uses a number of canned ingredients – tuna, sweetcorn and black beans so it’s a great pantry recipe.

But honestly you can totally freestyle and use whatever you like – this is an easygoing recipe folks! If you want to bulk this salad you can add finely diced lettuce or cabbage.

You can even leave the pasta out and just make this a healthy tuna salad instead 😉

• Canned tuna steak stored in brine (or olive oil)
• Elbow macaroni – or whatever small pasta shapes you prefer
• Canned black beans, drained and rinsed (great for using in slimming recipes, including sweet ones!)
• Avocado – this is very high in Syns so you can leave out for a SW version
• Canned corn (sweetcorn)
• Red onion
• Feta cheese
• Cherry tomatoes
• Peppers
• Fresh parsley or coriander
• Limes, olive oil for the dressing

Quick and Easy Peasy!

After cooking your pasta, all you have to do is prep all the vegetables, open a few tins and toss everything together.

Mix the juice of a lime with one minced garlic clove, two tablespoons of olive oil, dried oregano and dress your tuna pasta salad.

Add salt and pepper to taste and a sprinkling of cayenne or paprika for a touch of spice. You can also add some finely diced chilli pepper if you like it a bit hotter!

This pasta salad will keep in the fridge for a couple of days and you can serve it as a main meal or a side dish.

Healthy Pasta Salad Variations

Leave out the tuna and this recipe is vegetarian. If you leave out the tuna and cheese then it is vegan – you can replace the cheese with a vegan alternative if you like.

If you are not a tuna fan you can replace it with cubed chicken breast – it works just as well as a chicken pasta salad 😉

SW Tuna Pasta Salad

This pasta salad is perfect for Slimming World and Weight Watchers with a few minor modifications.

If you are following the Slimming World plan I will leave it up to you whether to add the avocado. I personally will put up with a few syns (there’s 14 in a whole avocado so approximately 2-3 per serving if serving 6) because I love it!

To control the amount of olive oil you add you can use a spray bottle filled with olive oil and add a few spritzes on your portion rather than dress the whole salad.

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