Tuna Cream Pasta (ツナクリームパスタ) is pasta, usually spaghetti cooked in creamy white sauce with canned tuna. The dish may be found at some restaurants, but it is mostly a western style Japanese home cooking dish. Although Tuna Cream Pasta doesn’t sound very Japanese, this easy and budget friendly pasta is one of the common everyday meals people eat in Japan.
Spaghetti is very popular food in Japan as well as the rest of the world since it is often easy to make at home. They make the dishes into more Japanese using local vegetables and seasonings distinctive to Japan sometimes, but they also enjoy dairy rich creamy pasta. Tuna Cream Pasta can be made in different ways. We used flour, butter and milk to make simplified Bechamel sauce to get thicker texture for the sauce, but heavy cream is preferred for thinner easier sauce. Because this is often cooked at home, ingredients vary depending on what you have on hand. In this recipe, we used onion and spinach, but you can use broccoli, mushrooms, or any leftover vegetables in the fridge. Instead of salt and pepper seasoning, use soy sauce or Miso Paste to flavor the dish to make it more Japanese if you like.
Tuna Cream Pasta requires super easy steps to make, and most of the ingredients are probably in your pantry already and very cheap. But there is no compromise on the taste, we promise. Try this one tonight!
Tuna Cream Pasta
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Ingredients
Instructions
- Slice onion thinly. Mince garlic.
- Boil water in a large pot with a couple tablespoons of salt (not in the ingredient list). Cook spaghetti according to the package. Meanwhile, start cooking the sauce.
- In a large frying-pan, heat oil with garlic. When the garlic starts turning color, add onion and cook until tender. Add butter, sprinkle flour over the onion, and cook for a couple of minutes stirring constantly. Add a small amount of milk first to avoid lumps, and then add the rest of milk. Add tuna and spinach. Season with salt and pepper.
- Add strained cooked pasta to the sauce and mix. Top with grated cheese (optional).