Dairy-Free Tuna Salad!

I love having this homemade dish for lunch! As long as I have a 3 oz package of Wild Albacore Tuna in my pantry, this is a guaranteed easy and delicious meal! For all of these ingredients I’d like you to use organic and local whenever possible.

Ingredients:

• 3 oz package of Wild Albacore Tuna
• 1 celery stalk, deveined, chopped
• 4 tablespoons olive oil (divided)
• 2 tablespoons vinegar (i.e. champagne, rice, white balsamic)
• fresh lemon Juice from 1/2 of a lemon
• 1 teaspoon mustard
• himalayan salt
• black pepper
• lemon pepper (or substitute another seasoning of your choice)
• 4-6 leaves of kale (or any leafy greens of your choice, i.e.  spinach, butter lettuce, romaine, etc)
• 2 -3 medium sized heirloom tomatoes (feel free to change the amount based on much you want!), chopped
• 1/2 of a cucumber, peeled and chopped
• sauteed mushrooms (I like to sauté about 4 ounces with a little broth in a pan for a few minutes on medium heat)
• 3 – 4 tablespoons (and more as needed) of low sodium broth
• 6-8 marcona almonds

Directions:

• Using low sodium broth (or even water) saute about 4 ounces of mushrooms in a pan over medium heat for approximately 6 – 8 minutes. If you like to multi-task then go ahead and get this started while you prepare the rest of the salad.
• Open the package of tuna and use a fork to scrape it out into a large bowl. Then squirt lemon juice, about 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and a dash of himalayan salt and pepper onto the tuna and mash it altogether.
• Next, add the chopped and deveined celery to the tuna mixture. A simple way to devein the celery is to use a peeler to peel off the top layer of the stalk. This step is particularly helpful for people who do not care for the taste of raw celery.

• Either make space in the bowl or remove the tuna and set aside to make room to whisk together my favorite dressing! The dressing is made with the following ingredients: 3 tbs. olive oil, 2 tbs. vinegar, a few squeezes of fresh lemon juice, 1 tsp. mustard, and a sprinkle of himalayan salt and lemon pepper seasoning. I simply use my  fork and whisk away!
• Next I like to add my greens to the bowl, typically kale. The sooner the kale is in the dressing the better, so the bitterness can be broken down. If you are using kale, remove the leafy part from the stems (either discard or save for another use). As I’m adding more chopped kale to the bowl I like to constantly whisk it around to coat it thoroughly with the dressing.
• Next I tend to chop up the more water-based veggies to the salad  (again I feel like it helps to break down the bitterness of the kale). So I would typically add the heirloom tomatoes, and then cucumbers before adding root vegetables like carrots or radishes.
• Before serving I like to sprinkle on a handful of marcona almonds for some crunch! Feel to substitute any nut or seed that you prefer or of course you can omit this step altogether!
• Serve and enjoy!!!

Servings: 1