Bell Peppers Stuffed With Tuna Salad
When deciding what to serve for lunch or for appetizer when hosting a dinner party try bell peppers stuffed with tuna salad and it will surely be a hit.
The bell peppers you choose to use can be of any color - red, yellow, orange, green, mixed color. Whenever I make this recipe I prefer to use orange bell peppers though any will do really.
The tuna you use to make tuna salad can either be chunk light tuna or solid tuna. Regardless of which tuna you use - chunk light or solid - it is better to use one that's in water as the tuna in oil has too much oil in it and since it's in a can it's been lying around soaked in that oil for a long time, which isn't the healthiest thing. You can always add some oil to the tuna when you make the tuna salad and it will taste that much better than just getting the tuna in oil and using that.
To make bell peppers stuffed with tuna salad the process is really simple. You make the tuna salad and then you wash a bell pepper, cut off the top, remove the seeds from inside, and stuff the pepper with tuna salad. It is that easy.
Read on for the full details of this recipe, including all the ingredients and step-by-step instructions.
Ingredients
- small can chunk light tuna (or solid tuna) in water
- 1 bell pepper (medium-size)
- 1 celery stalk
- 1 onion (small)
- dried basil or dried parsley
- 1 teaspoon mayonnaise
- sea salt
- olive oil
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Wash a (medium-size) bell pepper and pat dry with a paper towel. Then cut off the top portion of the bell pepper so you get a large opening. Take a spoon or knife and remove all the seeds from inside the pepper and throw them away. You may need to rinse the inside of the pepper with water to make sure all the seeds come out. If you do that be sure to drain all the water from inside the pepper. Once you do all this set the bell pepper aside onto a plate.
- Now it's time prepare the tuna salad. Open a small can of chunk light tuna (or solid tuna) in water, and place into a salad bowl, draining the water before doing so. Then add a pinch of sea salt and sprinkle with dried parsley flakes or dried basil. You can add both if you want.
- Peel a small onion and cut into small cubes. Place the cut onion in the salad bowl with the tuna. Then wash a celery stalk and cut into little pieces and place into the salad bowl. Add a teaspoon of mayonnaise and drizzle some olive oil on top of it. Then mix everything together. If you'd like you can even add a carrot to the tuna salad. It will still taste great.
- Take a spoon and transfer the tuna salad from the salad bowl to the inside of the bell pepper. You are now ready to serve and eat. This recipe makes for one serving so if you plan on feeding more people simply get more bell peppers and make more tuna salad. Depending on the actual size of the bell peppers the tuna salad you make with one small can of chunk light tuna may not fit into that one pepper so you may need to stuff another one.
- You don't have to use medium-size peppers in this recipe. You can very well use small ones too. Those may be easier for you to serve and eat. It is up to you. When making this recipe be sure that the bell peppers are fresh. Using spoiled ones will ruin the taste and the recipe. Also, when you serve the stuffed bell peppers you can place the top of the pepper you cut off back on top of the pepper just for presentation purposes and then tell everyone to remove the top before eating it.
How I came up with this recipe...
One day while trying to figure out what to eat for breakfast I had a craving for some tuna salad. While looking through the fridge for some chunk light tuna I noticed that we had some orange bell peppers lying around. I love bell peppers especially orange ones. I decided to try putting those two things together - the bell peppers and the tuna salad. Now I've made tuna salad before with slices of bell peppers inside it but this time I decided to try stuffing the bell peppers with the tuna salad. It gave me a new recipe and it turned out to be really good and also fun to eat.
It is more common to stuff peppers with ground meat or rice rather than with tuna salad, but stuffing bell peppers with tuna salad really works and tastes delicious, especially when the bell peppers are sweet and juicy.
© 2012 Lena Kovadlo
