Top Baked Potatoes With This Salad For A Quick And Delicious Protein Boost

A hot, salty baked potato with sour cream and butter is a dinnertime staple. It's hearty and highly versatile to boot. Unfortunately, even with a heap of bacon bits, many people find this classic side isn't quite enough by itself to make into a meal. But with the right toppings to upgrade your baked potato, it could be. And one protein-boosting topper comes courtesy of our friends across the pond: tuna salad.

This classic British jacket potato filling of cool and creamy fish-based mayo salad turns your baked potato into the main event with a whopping punch of protein. One cup of tuna salad has 17 to 30 grams of protein (depending on your recipe). That will help keep you full for longer than a plain baked potato, which only has about 4 grams of protein. 

Plus, tuna salad might just be a better potato-mate than you expect. The contrast of warm, fluffy potatoes and zippy, tangy tuna salad is unexpected but totally delicious. After all, combining potatoes with mayo isn't all that unheard of, and tuna (especially tuna packed in water) has a neutral taste that can be adjusted to pretty much any flavor profile, which means it can play well with many different dishes and flavor combos. To make, simply cook your baked potatoes as usual, remove from the oven, open, and butter. Then, add a heaping helping of tuna salad atop your spud, and enjoy. It is really as simple as that. Then again, you needn't stop your potato and tuna exploration with a simple dollop-and-go approach. There are ways to make this combination even better.

The beauty of this hack is its simplicity. But for some, this scoop and serve method may feel a bit, well, lackluster. Luckily, it isn't the only way to meld tuna with potato. If you want something a bit more hot and melty, why not go the twice-baked route? Simply hollow out your baked potatoes, then mix the scooped-out potato flesh with tuna salad and add the mixture back to your spuds. Top the whole thing with shredded cheese, then bake until it is golden-brown and gooey. 

Of course, we still haven't touched on the meat of this hack: the tuna salad. You'll want to consider the fillings, mix-ins, and makeup of your tuna salad in order to get optimal results. If you want a straightforward flavor, it needn't be more intricate than a combination of mayo and tuna. For a bit more punch, however, add some Old Bay to your tuna salad. You can even mix in horseradish for a hint of spice. If you're worried about your tuna salad becoming runny, supplement or replace your mayo with cream cheese, which is thicker.

If you're going to twice-bake your potatoes with tuna salad, be aware that some mix-ins may change texture in the oven. So avoid adding celery or other ingredients that might lose their snappy crunch. Additionally, if you usually use lemon juice in your salad, you might want to skip it, as prolonged heat could give it a sour, unpleasant taste. With these two considerations in mind, you can feel free to explore a whole plethora of oven-safe filling options. After all, potatoes are notoriously dynamic, and can go with many different flavorings. So go ahead and get creative.