July Recipes: Fennel Tuna Melt

A healthy twist on a quick and easy lunch recipe: the tuna melt.

Fennel is completely underrated and makes a lovely fresh addition to dishes raw or cooked. While it's fennel season, I've added it to my tuna melt recipe for some extra crunch and nutrition.

Simple, quick, healthy and most importantly delicious: that's what I look for in my weekly lunches and this fennel tuna melt recipe delivers just that. I've added some tang and spice to my tuna mix for extra depth of flavour and it pairs nicely with crunchy marinated fennel.

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Ingredients (serves 2):

Tuna sandwich filling recipe:

• 110g tinned tuna (MSC certified)

• 30g mayonnaise

• 2 jarred roasted red peppers

• 1/2 green chilli

• 8g jarred capers (optional)
  

• 1/2 lemon, juiced

• Fennel tops

Marinated fennel salad recipe:

• 2 fennel bulbs

• 5g basil leaves

• 1 Tbs apple cider vinegar

• 2 Tbs EVOO

• 40mL water

• Sea Salt

• 2 thick bread slices

• 30g mature cheddar

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Method:

How to make the marinated fennel:

1. Add the basil, apple cider vinegar, EVOO, water and a few pinches of salt to a blender and blitz until smooth. Alternatively, add them to a jug and use a stick blender.

2. Prep the fennel. Cut off the green stalk and pick off the fennel tops/leaves, thinly slice them and keep to the side for the tuna filling. Slice off and discard the sides of the green stalks, the remaining cores can be sliced into thin sticks. Finally, slice the bulb thinly by peeling it with a vegetable peeler to obtain thin strips.

3. Put all the thinly sliced fennel into a bowl and pour the marinade on top. Stir to make sure all the fennel is covered and leave to the side while you prepare the tuna mixture.

How to make the spicy tuna sandwich filling:

1. Halve a red onion, keep half in the fridge for another recipe. With the remaining half, remove the skin and dice it as small as possible.

2. Halve the green chili, taste a seed to check the spice level and decide if you want to include them, thinly slice the chilli into sticks then cut across to get a small dice.

3. Roughly chop the roasted red peppers and capers using a rocking motion with your knife on top of the board.

4. In a bowl, mix all the diced ingredients with the drained tuna, mayo and juice of half a lemon. Stir until well combined, then taste to see if the seasoning needs any adjusting.

How to make a fennel tuna melt.

1. Slice your bread of choice, top with the tuna filling, a couple spoonfuls of fennel and grated cheddar.

2. Bake under the grill until the cheese has melted and started to brown.

3. Enjoy hot with the rest of the fennel on the side. Bon appétit!

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More about this fennel recipe:

Recipe shortcuts:

• This recipe is quick and easy. You can batch make the tuna mix and the marinated fennel to make quick lunches for a couple of days in the week.

• The tuna mix and fennel also make a great sandwich filler without the cheese, or you can have them on their own as a salad.

Keys to success:

• Make sure to taste a bit of the chilli before adding it in to adjust the spice level to your taste.

• This is quite an easy recipe but if you have any problems/questions please leave a comment so I can help.

Health benefits of fennel:

It's a good source of:

• folate which supports the formation of red blood cells;
  

• vitamin K which contributes to blood clotting and therefore healing wounds, but also supports bone health and cognitive function.

• vitamin C which supports with wound healing, cell, skin and bone health.

• soluble fibre which helps lower blood cholesterol, slows the release of energy from food and soften stools for better digestive health. It also serves as a prebiotic meaning it feeds our gut bacteria for a healthy microbiome.
  

Fennel contains active compounds in its essential oils, the main components are trans-anethole and fenchone. These are present in both plant and seed although the concentration is much higher in the seed (about double). These compounds have many beneficial properties:

1. they can aid in stomach upsets due to carminative properties (bluntly: it helps alleviate gas).

2. anethole polymers such as dinaethole and photoanethole have an oestrogenic activity and therefore can help increase milk excretion after birth or support with menopausal symptoms.

3. they have antimicrobial properties against certain harmful bacteria .

Fennel also contains phenolic compounds such as kaempferol and quercetin which have anti-oxidant properties and reduce the incidence of cardiovascular diseases and certain types of cancers. On top of this, they are also anti-inflammatory, which amongst other benefits can help prevent neurodegeneration.

A moment of happiness:

Folate - required to synthesise serotonin, one of our good mood hormones; and not having enough folate therefore increases the chance of feeling depressed.

Vitamin C - is involved in converting dopamine to noradrenaline - low amounts of noradrenaline are associated with depression.

Fibre (non digestible/inulin-like) - among other benefits, our microbiome convert it to tryptophan (precursor to the good mood hormone serotonin).

Hopefully this makes you excited to try this and many other fennel recipes during its season!

You can find lots of ideas on how to cook fennel in my newsletter: https://felicityvincent.substack.com/

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Full Video:

Cook along with this step-by-step video and learn how to make a basil fennel salad and spicy tuna melt.

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Photos: