Low-calorie tuna pasta recipe

This delicious low-calorie tuna pasta is just 249 calories per serving, and it's ready in under half an hour.

This recipe uses fresh tuna steaks which makes a nice change from the cooked, tinned tuna that is more common in pasta sauces. To get the best texture, we've seared the fish gently on the hob, just to colour the outside of it, before cutting it into chunks to toss through the fusilli. Tender chunks of fresh tuna seared gently on the pan. To allow the fish to take the starring role, the sauce is just a very simple low-fat cream cheese, loosened with a little milk to make it creamy and delicious. This is one of our most popular low calorie pasta (opens in new tab) recipes.

Ingredients

• 45g wholewheat pasta twists
• 1 clove garlic, peeled
• 75g green beans
• Spray oil
• 100g fresh tuna
• 25g tub low-fat cream cheese, eg, Philadelphia Lightest
• 3 tbsp skimmed milk
• Salt and pepper

Method

1. Cook the pasta twists and garlic in a pan of boiling water for 7-8 mins. Add the beans to the pan and cook for a further 3-4 mins, until the pasta and beans are tender, then drain.
2. Heat a non-stick frying pan, spray lightly with oil and sear the tuna on all sides, then remove the tuna from the pan and cut it into chunks.
3. Add the cheese and milk to the hot pan. Stir in the pasta and beans, season, then stir in the tuna and serve.

Top tips for making low calorie tuna pasta

Fresh tuna is the star ingredient here, but it's much more expensive than tinned tuna, so you might want to save it for special occasions. For an everyday version, you could easily swap the fresh tuna for tinned, which would require no cooking.

You might also like…

• Low calorie meals (opens in new tab): Dinners under 500 calories
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• Tinned tuna recipes (opens in new tab)