Not Just a Man's World

This snack is perfect for taking to work in a small pot.  We actually mix up a whole week’s worth on Sunday night and box it up in small pots ready for the week ahead. 

A week's worth of tuna coleslaw, packed up and ready to go

It’s very flexible for different diets.  For example, I have more fish oil in my diet than Chris but need to have less calories than him, so I replace half a tablespoon of mayonnaise with a tablespoon of liquid fish oil instead. 

The quantity of mayonnaise can in fact be used to flex the total calories in your day for a whole variety of dietary needs.  When I’m on a cutting diet I strip out the mayonnaise entirely and just use liquid fish oil to keep it moist.  When Chris is bulking he has more than a tablespoon of mayonnaise.  You can see the difference in the photo above, taken at a time when I was cutting and Chris was bulking – his are the creamy ones on the left and mine are the mayo-free oily ones to the right.

But why have this combination at all?  Well, the essence of the snack is to get some good quality protein in during the day.  However, when we first came up with it, we had recently realised that our fruit and veg intake just wasn’t high enough and we were almost certainly creating an acid base.  After failed attempts to add cabbage to the evening meal, I realised that the obvious solution was to put it in here.  It means that we are getting some alkaline at the same time as the tuna and ensures that we spread our veg throughout the day.

Tuna coleslaw

Ingredients:
1 small can tuna in brine (200g)
1/8 medium cabbage chopped finely
1 tbsp mayonnaise

Directions:

1. Prepare the cabbage: I recommend cutting the cabbage into quarters, then cut one quarter in half down its length (leaving a “wedge” of cabbage, like an orange segment).  This is all the cabbage you need.  The tuna coleslaw is better the finer the cabbage is cut, so I recommend then cutting the desired wedge in half down its length again before slicing these wedges as thinly as possible, thus avoiding any long bits of cabbage.
2. Drain the tuna and place in a bowl with the cabbage.
3. Thoroughly mix the dry ingredients, then add the mayonnaise (and fish oil if you like) and remix.

My preference is to use white cabbage, however red cabbage works just as well (and is the only cabbage that was available the week I took these photos).  Both white and red cabbages give a crisp, refreshing and slightly peppery flavour to the coleslaw.  We did try green cabbage one week, when it was all that we could get hold of.  Green cabbage (as sold in our local Co-operative) is a bit like savoy cabbage and we found it was much drier and chewier than the white or red cabbage, making the coleslaw difficult to get through.

Related posts:

1. Paleo kitchen experiments: tuna coleslaw and other portable meals
2. Paleo recipes: salmon mousse
3. Paleo recipes: spicy red cabbage
4. Paleo recipes: carrot roulade with egg and watercress filling