Power of Women in our Sixties

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Healthy Tuna Pasta Bake

Chris Vidal

Ingredients

  1. Pasta – dried penne, fusilli or rigatoni. Or any shapes that allow for the sauce to cling to them! For extra flavour I like to cook my pasta with one vegetable stock cube.

  2. Passata – preferably passata rustica which is a thicker type of passata. Or you can pick a passata with basil and garlic (check there’s no other added ingredients such as sugar). Alternatively you can use a pasta sauce if you have one you like… I find they always have too much salt and other additives so best avoided.

  3. Tinned chopped tomatoes or cherry tomatoes. You can also use fresh cherry tomatoes if you prefer.

  4. Tinned sweetcorn or you can add frozen peas. You can freestyle and add any number of vegetables as long as they either cook quickly or you par boil them first. You can always stick them in with the pasta!

  5. Extra light cream cheese (such as Philadelphia) which is 1.5 syns per 25g making it .25 syns per serving (I say that’s almost none). Alternatively you can use Dairylea or Laughing Cow cheese which is free but the taste is quite different.

  6. Grated cheddar and /or mozzarella. Both are allowed as healthy extras and the recipe contains 200g (14oz) which divided by six is within your healthy extra allowance for cheese. You can use reduced fat cheese if you prefer.

  7. Fresh basil or parsley. I have potted herbs on standby but if you haven’t got any then you can use 1-2 teaspoons Italian Herb Mix. 

Method

STEP 1. Preheat the oven 10 180C (350F).

STEP 2. Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Add the stock cube and ½ tsp salt and stir to dissolve. Add the pasta and set a timer to cook it for 2 minutes less than the time on the pack. Drain the pasta into a large bowl, reserving 80ml (⅓ cup) of the pasta water.

STEP 3. Mix the cream cheese with half of the Passata until well blended.

STEP 4. Add the cream cheese mix, remaining passata and tinned tomatoes to the pasta bowl. Give everything a good stir.

STEP 5. Add the corn, a handful of the grated cheese, drained tuna, chopped basil, salt, sweetener and dried chilli flakes and stir to combine.

STEP 6. Transfer to an ovenproof baking dish (aprox 20x30cm)and drizzle with the reserved pasta water.

STEP 7. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until the cheese has melted.

STEP 8. Garnish with more chopped basil and serve!