Romaine Salad with Tuna, Green Beans, Olives, and Capers

I woke up really fat one morning last week all of the sudden. It came out of nowhere.

That’s a lie.  The truth is I’ve been eating whatever I have felt like for the past three months because well it’s been a really long, cold, snowy, boring winter … and I love food. And now is the time of year I start making myself salads that have low fat proteins, sprinklings of salt and “good fats” and lots of raw veggies so that I don’t look like a tank coming down the beach in a couple of months.  This Romaine Salad with Tuna, Green Beans, Olives, and Capers is precisely the type of week night salad I need to start eating.

So here’s what is nice about this salad.  Assuming you’ve got some lettuce, cucumbers, green beans, green onions and tomatoes on hand, all you have to do is crack open some cans of tuna, capers and olives and you are good to go.  This makes it a perfect weeknight dinner option. 

The only cooking you need to do is a three minute steam of some green beans. And you can always omit that step if you are prepared to skip the beans.  And you can easily omit any of the other ingredients depending upon what is in the fridge any given night.

Now I actually tried out a couple of different canned tunas for this dish with the Fam.  It was our Good Friday Taste Test.  In purchasing some canned tuna, I stuck to canned albacore in water (although I love the tunas canned in oil when I am not counting calories and fat). 

We were pleasantly surprised by the bang we got for our buck with Bumble Bee.  In contrast, I could not stomach the Starkist brand tuna, nor could anyone else.  We tried two more environmentally friendly brands, Crown Prince and Natural Sea. Both had higher quality fish (notably reflected in the higher price of both) and were a bit tastier.

Natural sea was our favorite.  And we felt better about eating it.  It being “natural” and all.  But if economy is where it’s at for you or your options are limited, Bumble Bee is the way to go.

Romaine Salad with Tuna, Green Beans, Olives, and Capers

Author: Julie du Pont

Prep time:  10 mins

Cook time:  3 mins

Total time:  13 mins

Serves: 2-3

Ingredients

Salad

• 1 cup of green beans
• Head of romaine lettuce, chopped
• ½ cup chopped plum tomatoes
• ¼ cup pitted black olives
• 2 tbsp capers
• ½ of one cucumber, peeled and chopped
• 1 tbsp fresh dill or ½ tsp dried
• 1 scallion/green onion, fine chopped
• 1 can of albacore tuna

Dressing

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp sherry vinegar
• 1 tsp dijon mustard
• ⅛ tsp ground sea salt
• ⅛ tsp ground pepper

Instructions

1. Steam green beans in the microwave dish with ¼ cup of water on high for 3 minutes. Drain and run cold water over. Pat dry.
2. In a salad bowl, assemble romaine lettuce, tomatoes, olives, capers, cucumber, dill, green onion, tuna and green beans.
3. Whisk the salad ingredients together. Pour of salad and toss until all ingredients are lightly coated. Serve immediately.

Julie du Pont is a Darien resident, mom and lawyer.  She blogs about food and entertaining at weekendtable.com.