Tuna-Stuffed Baked “Potato”
An interesting twist on “loaded” baked potatoes! If you’ve never baked turnips in your microwave you simply MUST try it sometime. Wash and poke with a few holes to prevent them exploding and bake just like baked potatoes (Microwave on HI about 4 minutes per side for large ones). Cut, fork up, butter and you’ll SWEAR you’re eating a baked potato!!!! They’re wonderful with grilled steaks.
This dish, however, is a meal unto itself, topped off with lots of cheese and tuna. A little carby, due to the turnip, but you can cut carbs in half just doing this over steamed, buttered cauliflower as well. It just won’t LOOK like a baked potato like the turnips will. This dish is best suited for Atkins Phase 2 OWL, provided you can fit the carbs into your daily carb limit. It is kind of carb-y, but the nutritional values make it well worth those carbs. Check out the stats below! It is suitable for Primal but not Paleo unless the cheese is left out. If this recipe appeals to you but you really can’t afford to consume that many carbs at one meal, choose smaller turnips or serve the toppings on 1 c. steamed cauliflower instead. That will pull down the carbs by quite a bit. It won’t look the same, but will taste just about the same in the end. 🙂
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INGREDIENTS:
2 large turnips, about 10 oz. each raw (each will yield about 7 oz. edible flesh, as you don’t eat the skins)
1 6.4-oz. pouch water-pack tuna
1¼ c. grated Cheddar cheese
4 T. butter
3 T. finely chopped chives
¼ c. sour cream
1/4 tsp. seasoning of your choice: (I used my Seafood Spice Blend: https://buttoni.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/my-seafood-spice-blend/ )
Dash salt (omit if you are extremely sodium sensitive)
DIRECTIONS: Scrub/wash the turnips, trim the stem and tip off. Stir tuna, 1 c. of the cheese, the seasoning and salt, 2 T. of the chives (reserve 1 T. for final topping) in a bowl and set aside. Chop chives finely and set aside for now. Microwave prepared turnips about 3-4 minutes on HI, turn over and microwave 3-4 minutes longer on the second side. They should feel fairly soft when slightly squeezed. Preheat oven to 350º. Remove and slice in half without cutting the two parts completely apart. They will sit on the plate nicer if not cut in twain. Place the halves on medium-sized plates that you plan to serve on. Fork up the turnip flesh a bit, trying not to tear the skins. Top each turnip half with 1 T. butter and fork that around a bit so it melts. Dot each half with 1 T. sour cream. Next spoon ¼ the tuna-cheese mixture evenly on each turnip half. Set plates on a baking sheet and pop into preheated 350º oven for about 10 minutes. Remove and sprinkle the remaining ¼ c. of the cheese and finally the remaining chives on top and pop back into over for 5-10 minutes more until cheese if fully melted. Serve at once with perhaps a green salad.
NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes 2 very filling adult dinner-size servings, each contains: (Please note, this would make 4 smaller lunch portions).
665 calories
50 g fat
18.9 g carbs, 4.8 g fiber, 14.1 g NET CARBS
37.35 g protein
1332 mg sodium
Buttoni's Low-Carb Recipes 
Peggy…this is a solid winner. Made it just now for lunch using a much smaller turnip than a ten ouncer, more like four ounces. I added some finely chopped red onion on top and then added the last of the cheese over that. Also used greek yoghurt in place of the sour cream. Remarkable recipe. I like turnips anyway but this truly is potato like. Remind your readers that turnips are a great replacement for potatoes when making a roast. Delicious. Thanks for yet another wonderful recipe! This one will be a regular for me!
I’m just delighted, Frank. It is truly amazing how microwaving turnips makes them taste just like a sweet red baking potato. Red onion sounds GOOD! I’ll have to try that next time. Thanks for taking the time to share that with me and my readers. Happy baked turnips to you!
Looks wonderful! Hope you’re having a great week. 🙂
Thanks, Jen. They were quite tasty.
This sounds wonderful! I LOVE turnips. My question is this: Because many people think of turnips as the big rutabagas, do you mean the small white, purple-ended turnips or the larger yellow rutabagas? In either event, I’ll bet this dish is delicious. You have such a creative mind!
Definitely the purple-ended white-meat turnips. Rutabagas are so good, but are even higher in carbs than turnips, so I rarely eat those. Let me know how you like these! 🙂
Thank you for your very swift response, Buttoni! I thought that’s what you meant, but I wanted to make sure. Won’t be able to make this dish until I go shopping next week, but will definitely plan on it. Will let you know how it turns out for me. Really looking forward to it, and I LOVE your site; you are SO helpful!
Thank you, Mary. You’re so kind to say that! Always makes a girl feel good when her recipes are appreciated and enjoyed. 🙂
You could also remove about half the inside and reduce the carbs as well. Perhaps remove half the turnip and replace it with some steamed mashed cauliflower (mash the two together and refill the shell. I don’t know because I have not tried but I thought it might be an option to reduce some of the carbs… just remove half the turnip for a lighter meal or replace with cauliflower to have the same “size” portion. I would be interested in how it works for someone who might try it. I will try to remember next shopping trip but that will be 3 weeks from now.
Yes, that certainly would reduce the carbs. The cauli sub sounds like the better of the two options, as there’s not all that much meat in a turnip after cooking. They seem to shrink so with cooking.