Just Bento

I can't see a way to edit my original post, but I did just find Maki's tuna tofu burger recipe, which I will def be making! :)

I often mix tinned tuna into Mac & Cheese (the Kraft Dinner, fluorescent orange variety, of course!), or other pasta & sauce mixes. It adds a little protein to a really quick dinner, or in this case, a really quick bento lunch. The sauce would cover the taste of the tuna, although I can't say I've really every noticed the difference in flavour between cheap tuna and the more pricey kinds.

Another option would be to mix in some mayo (kewpie or otherwise) and some chopped celery (or other favourite veg), to make a very quick tuna salad-type spread to go in sandwiches or just eat plain (the celery is optional, but gives some nice texture). When I first lived on my own, I practically lived on dinners made up of rice, tinned tuna, and some cooked veg, all topped off with a bit of soy sauce. It too, would make a really quick bento!

hope that helps inspire you! :)

-g.

(cough) you should be able to edit your own topics/comments now (slap the admin)

I am going to make Wakame and Tuna with Soy Dressing which is a recipe I found in Susie Donald's Japanese Homestyle Dishes. I also found it on several web pages.

10 g (1/3 oz) wakame
2 cups (500 ml) water
170-g (two 6-oz) cans water-packed tuna
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 baby cucumber, thinly sliced
1 tomato, diced

Dressing
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons sesame oil

Method:

1. Soak the dried wakame in a bowl of cold water to soften, about 20 minutes.
2. Bring the water to a boil in a small saucepan. Blanch the wakame for 30 seconds, drain and rinse under cold water. Pat dry with paper toweling. Remove any hard veins from the wakame and slice into 1 cm (l/2-in) strips.
3. To make the Dressing, combine vinegar, soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil in a small bowl, stirring until sugar is dissolved.
4. Place tuna in a mixing bowl, sprinkle with lemon juice and break into bite-sized pieces using a fork. Combine wakame, baby cucumber and tomato with the tuna and toss with the Dressing. Serve immediately.

That sounds nice too. I have been meaning to get some wakame and I think I have everything else. Thanks! :)

Tuna salad sandwiches. (Tuna, mayo, relish, dijon mustard, to taste. Some people like to add celery but I don't like celery enough to get through the whole bunch so I don't do that.)

Mix tuna with mayo (just enough to hold it together) and sriracha sauce to taste, use as sushi filling (or make a sandwich with it, whatever).

As sushi filler! Now that's something I had not considered. Thanks! :)

It's embarrassing how easily I miss the obvious sometimes. :/ ;)

It's good added to pasta salad too :)

Not to hijack the thread, but what's your favorite brand of canned tuna? I ask this because I normally buy the lowest priced can of solid or chunky white albacore tuna packed in water that's on-sale. Several months ago, I bought some low priced chunky white albacore tuna. When I opened the can, the tuna looked and smelled like cat food. I gave all the cans to my next door neighbor for her cats. Apparently, the cats weren't as picky as me and wolfed them all down. I wish I could remember the brand name of the canned tuna so that I can avoid buying them again. Since I can't, I'm wondering if others can share with me the names of their favorite brands of canned tuna that can't be mistaken for cat food.

When I do eat canned tuna, I just put it on brown rice and pour a little bit of soy sauce on it for seasoning. Yummy. . . but, I will try the other recipes that have been posted.

Yeah, I don't much like any brand of chunk tuna as it seems that it's a catch-all for all sorts of sub-standard tuna bits. Around here I like Bumblebee brand solid white albacore, but I miss the more flavorful tuna in oil that I used to get in Italy.

My favorite tuna so far is a Portuguese brand called "Queen of the Coast". It comes in a sardine can shape and is oil-packed. It is so flavorful any yummy! But it's hard to find, and usually pricey. I did find some at my local grocery where they were discontinuing it, which was bad, but it was half off, which was good, and I bought all they had. I was in tuna heaven for a while, but now they are all gone. sniff...

I don't like the dark sweepings type, that you all say smells like cat food, but I don't like the water-packed tuna either. I know oil-packed is more calories, but I drain off and press out almost all the oil, and then it's not so bad calorie wise.

I just don't find water-packed tuna very tasty. It seems dry and bland to me, as if all the flavor goes into the water, which then gets thrown out. And I find I tend to add more mayo,because it's so dry, which seems to just adds back any calories the water-pack is supposed to save.

I wish I could find a good oil-pack albacore tuna. Even if I had to pay more, I can't find it period. The only oil-packed kind I can find around here is the dark sweepings type. So I just don't eat tuna much anymore, which is a shame cause I do like it. Oh well, less mercury for me. XD

you can make a tuna casserole

1 can of cream of mushroom or cream of celery soup
1 box of pasta (bow tie, elbow, wide noodles) whatever u want
some kind of veggie, i use peas and carrots but i guess you can really change them to whatever you prefer
salt and pepper
1 bag of potato chips
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

cook the pasta and drain
drain the tuna, then mix it with the veggies and the cream soup and mix all that with the pasta, then put it in a baking pan, topped off with the potato chips and bake for 20 minutes

we used to make this in college all the time..it makes for great left overs~

GOOD LUCK
~A

Check out towards the bottom of http://bronwyncarlisle.blogspot.com/2009/02/prep-for-week-4.html
for the steamed curry thingies. Turned out delicious. I used flavoured tuna because that's what I had, but I also missed out a good few ingredients to compensate.

When I was little my mother very rarely made us tuna salad with mayo. Instead she would mix the drained tuna with olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, chopped celery and tomatoes. Lastly, right before we ate it, she would mix in some shredded lettuce that she quickly tore up with her hands. To this day, this is still how I prefer my tuna salad and it makes an amazing light lunch in the summer. It also makes great sandwiches with toasted Italian bread.

I made tuna/salmon mock-furikake tonight, using the techniques I learned from Maki. I mixed one can of tuna with one can of salmon, and then added a ton of soy sauce, a bit of rice vinegar (the sour taste really elliminates the 'canned fish' taste), sriracha sauce and (please don't kill me!) powdered ginger. I then dried it out in the oven at 300 Degrees Farenheit for about 1 hour, stirring constantly. YUMMMY on brown rice!

Mix your canned tuna with a little bit of shoyu and sugar and heat for a couple of minutes on the stove. Use it to make maki sushi... add cucumber, egg, carrot, and ebi flakes. Thats how we hawaiians eat it! You can also make mini tuna patties with breadcrumbs, egg, parsely, chopped up bell pepper or celery, onion, and mayo. Coat in panko and fry them up.

As for my favorite tuna brand: Coral tuna. I think its only a Hawaiian brand but is made by Bumblebee. If I can't find Coral, I like to use chicken of the sea or the albacore tuna in the pouches. :)

My mum prepares some kind of potatoe+tuna+garlic pudding that's absolutely marvelous... and can go in a bento too! I'll ask her the recipe!

http://jizaacaso.deviantart.com

You know about Maki's tofu/tuna burgers - that's a corker of a recipe! A real favourite at our house.

I also suggest this easy to make and cheap recipe.

Mash a can of drained canellini beans.
Add a little salt and seasonings to taste (you might like tabasco, paprika or something along those lines)
Add a drained can of tuna
Some grated cheese is optional.
Mix together

Fashion into burgers, patties or even sausage shapes. Dip in some beaten egg and then smother with panko/breadrumbs.
Lightly fry until golden.

Adding some pre-fried onion pieces to the mix makes it even nicer but adds time. A little pre-fried garlic added to the mix is also recommended.

I hope no-one minds me referring to another recipe blog - but this recipe for Korean tuna pancakes is also delicious! And really easy to make, don't forget the dipping sauce.
http://mykoreankitchen.com/2006/10/04/tuna-pancakes-chamchijeon-in-korea...
(similar to Maki's recent recipe: http://www.justbento.com/handbook/recipe-collection-mains/buchimgae-or-c...)

You can make tuna soboro:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/annathered/3350958010/

mm... tuna ^___^
It's such a yummy fish sometimes.

Whenever I get a quick munching mood, I sometimes use drained [cheap] canned tuna flakes straight onto crackers with a tiny slice of cheese, or even hand-grated cheese [prepared grated is ok too].
It's nice because there isn't any mayonaise required, so it won't spoil as much and cheese tastes better when in room temperature.

This isn't a huge recipe, but I'm sure it could work for a bento snack! :}

Hmm what I did was tako two 80g water packed tuna, drain, added a teaspon of teryaki sauce, teaspon of fishsauce, 3 finely chopped cloves of garlic, mix gently but well and then added that to todays pasta bento. The only thing I need to remember for next time is to keep it cooler since the bit that was left over I ate yesterday evening and it was so good...

Well, 5 months late but...

Tons of different things you can do with the stuff.

Toast a bagel, slather with creamcheese and then flake the tuna on top. Kind of like an extremely light smoked salmon.

Add mayo and mustard powder (a dash) and a little rice vinigar and then add to Hot pasta. Stir and eat (adding salt and pepper to taste).

Lightly flake and add toasted sesame seeds and make an Onigiri with it.

Tons of things!

In this recipe for samgak kimbap/onigiri, Maangchi cooks canned tuna with garlic, soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame, and pepper, then uses it for onigiri filling. It sounds like a great alternative to the standard tuna-with-mayo. (I haven't tried it yet.)

http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/samgakkimbap

Just found this site a few days ago. I am really hungry now. LOL! I always add wasabi to my tuna sandwiches. Cut back on Mayo and replace with some wasabi then add your usual ingrediants. Love this site.

I know I'm late in posting this, but I have a sort of weird recipe for tuna that I developed, and I'd like to see what other folks think of it. I used to hate tuna, to the point where I could not stand for it to look, smell, or taste like itself. Husband loves tuna, and particularly loves to stock up on it when there's a good sale. So my first experiment with making tuna that wasn't quite so tuna-esque was this:

2 or 3 tbs tahini
lemon juice to taste--I usually use somewhere in the realm of half a lemon per recipe
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 can of tuna
1 tbs za'atar

Mince or crush garlic.
Mix tahini, lemon juice, and garlic in a bowl. Taste it as you mix so you can adjust the lemon/garlic to your liking the first time.

Drain tuna. Place tuna meat into the bowl with the dressing. Add za'atar and mix thoroughly. Toss into a green salad, spread onto romaine hearts, or stuff into a pita-pocket.

You can also use labni (strangled yoghurt or yoghurt cheese) instead of tahini, or even along with.

Another late response. A simple recipe for something I made recently.

Noodles
1 tbsp. Sesame oil
Soy sauce
Drained Tuna
Chilli/chilli flakes (option)

Cook your noodles. Toss/fry in sesame oil, soy sauce, tuna and chilli flakes. Serve.
Ingredient quantities at your discretion,add however little or much as you like.

There's a cookbook that's been on Sale at most stores recently called Hungry Girl 200 under 200 that I recieved for Christmas. So far I've tried 2 different "salad" recipes, which both called for canned tuna and a few staples like hot sauce, honey mustard, or taco seasoning, and they were friggin awesome.

http://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Girl-Under-Recipes-Calories/dp/0312556179/r...

^ It's currently onsale at Amazon for $12US

The writing style is obnoxious to my tastes, but so is Rachel Ray. This book and my Rachel Ray book both of some of the tastiest, flavorful recipes I've tried so far in them. But I will drop dead before I ever say EVOO.

hana.yori.dango

In one of Harumi's Japanese Home Cookbooks, she has a recipe for tuna and carrot salad. I don't remember the exact recipe, but perhaps you can find it online? It sounded pretty yummy. Just canned tuna, julienned carrots, white whine vinegar, soy sauce, chopped onion and garlic, vegetable oil, mustard, and salt and pepper. It's definitely on my list of recipes to try because it is easy and delicious.

i add apples and walnuts with a little mayo or miracle whip (i prefer miracle whip) and eat it plain, light and refreshing

Personally, I love to add tuna to lettuce (make sure you pour the oil from the tuna too, gives nice flavour). I also add vinegar, salt - then taste it. Then add fetta cheese ontop for contrasting flavour that compliments alot. Many have tried this from me and they all like it. It's very simple, great as a salad. You can eat that alone and be full. I can't get enough of it personally XD