Spicy Tuna Melt Omelet
A tuna melt that lives inside an omelet. Sriracha-spiked tuna salad with briny capers and diced celery goes cold into a folded egg wrapper, where melted cheddar holds everything together.
64 grams of protein from four sources (canned tuna, eggs, cheddar, and yogurt) packed into 849 calories and 15 minutes of actual work. The whole wheat toast on the side rounds out the plate with complex carbs and fiber.
A tuna melt that lives inside an omelet. Sriracha-spiked tuna salad with briny capers and diced celery goes cold into a folded egg wrapper, where melted cheddar holds everything together.
64 grams of protein from four sources (canned tuna, eggs, cheddar, and yogurt) packed into 849 calories and 15 minutes of actual work. The whole wheat toast on the side rounds out the plate with complex carbs and fiber.
Ingredients
- tuna, in water 5 ounces
- red onion 0.25
- celery 1 stalk
- mayonnaise 1 tablespoon
- yogurt, nonfat 1 tablespoon
- yellow mustard 1 teaspoon
- Sriracha sauce 1 teaspoon
- capers 0.5 tablespoon
- eggs 2
- milk, 2% reduced fat 1 fluid ounce
- olive oil 1 tablespoon
- cheddar cheese, shredded 1.5 ounces
- bread, whole wheat 2 slices
Method
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Drain the tuna in a colander.
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Finely chop the red onion and cut the celery into small cubes.
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Put the tuna in a bowl along with the mayonnaise, yogurt, mustard, Sriracha and some pepper and salt. Stir everything together. Mix in the red onion, celery and capers.
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Break the eggs into a bowl. Beat the eggs with the milk and some pepper and salt using a fork.
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Heat the oil in a frying pan. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and cook an omelet over medium heat. Spread half of the cheese over one half of the omelet, place the tuna salad on top and finish with the other half of the cheese.
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Fold the other half of the omelet over this. Cook on both sides over low heat for a few more minutes until the cheese is melted.
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Serve the omelet on a plate with the toasted bread on the side.
Give the capers a rough chop before mixing them into the tuna salad. Whole capers pop with concentrated brine in random bites. Chopped capers spread that salty punch evenly through every forkful.
Capsaicin, the compound behind Sriracha's heat, has been shown to amplify the thermogenic effect of protein. A 2013 randomized crossover trial found that when capsaicin and high-protein meals arrived together, the body's diet-induced energy expenditure increased and fat oxidation went up compared to protein alone. This omelet pairs 64 grams of protein with capsaicin from the Sriracha stirred into the tuna salad.
Smeets & Westerterp-Plantenga 2013, Capsaicin-Protein Thermogenesis · DOIBehind this recipe
Is 64 grams of protein in one meal too much?
No. The idea that your body can only use 30 grams of protein per meal came from studies that stopped measuring after a few hours. Longer studies found that protein digestion simply slows down to handle larger doses, your body adjusts the speed, not the ceiling. At 64 grams, this omelet is well within what the research supports for a single sitting.
Read the full evidence reviewCan I use fresh tuna instead of canned?
You can, but it changes the dish. Fresh tuna needs to be cooked first, then cooled and flaked, adding time and a step. Canned tuna in water is already cooked, ready to mix, and delivers the same protein. For a 15-minute recipe, canned is the faster path.
Why both mayonnaise and yogurt?
Mayo brings richness. Yogurt brings tang and cuts through the fat without making the salad heavy. Together they create a creamier, lighter tuna salad than either would alone. It also means less total mayo, the yogurt replaces half the fat with protein.
