The Only Type Of Canned Tuna You Should Add To Linguine

Seafood linguine is a meal unto itself. Packed with protein and carbs, tossing in some vegetables completes the dish by combining different tastes and textures. Linguine is one of the best types of pasta to pair with seafood because you can easily wrap linguine noodles around a bit of seafood to bring it up to your mouth. It's also more traditional. As Assaggio notes, people in the Liguria region of Italy have been mixing seafood and shellfish with linguine for hundreds of years.

Enter canned tuna, a staple of American pantries. It offers an easy way for busy families to make protein-packed lunches, casseroles, and pasta dishes. One 3-ounce serving of canned tuna provides nearly half of your daily protein along with plentiful amounts of B-vitamins, phosphorus, and selenium, according to Nutrition Data. While you should be careful about mercury levels when eating fish, the Environmental Defense Fund notes that canned light tuna has about one-third the amount of mercury compared to regular canned tuna.

This popular ocean fish can easily be added to seafood linguine because canned tuna is already cooked and needs little preparation. Kids may also prefer the flavor of tuna, and it's convenient and shelf-stable. When you make seafood linguine with tuna for your next pasta night, consider one specific type of canned tuna for best results.

Canned tuna comes in many varieties, and there are many brands available. Some canned tuna offers one species, while another favors a different species. There is also tuna canned in water and oil. And even with tuna canned in oil, various kinds of oil can affect the taste. Bon Appétit claims tuna packed in olive oil keeps the flavor sealed in the fish rather than in the liquid. Meanwhile, when you use tuna packed in water, the flavor of the fish seeps into the liquid rather than staying in the meat.

The Washington Post says tuna in olive oil will have a richer flavor compared to other oils. The meat will also be more robust. But, you should always drain the can of tuna before mixing it into your seafood linguine recipe.

Tuna packed in olive oil is the best choice for seafood linguine, not only for the flavor but for the health benefits. Olive oil can help lower your risk of stroke, reduce inflammation, enhance your heart health, and destroy harmful bacteria, says WebMD. Buon appetito!