Tuna wrap for work: an easy recipe with 31 g of protein

A wrap packed at seven in the morning is usually a soggy mess by the time you open it at lunch. The culprit is rarely the tuna — it's water from the vegetables and a sauce that's too thin. This version fixes both, takes fifteen minutes, and lands at roughly 31 g of protein per serving.

Prep time and servings

Prep: 15 minutes. Cooking: 2 minutes (warming the tortillas in a dry pan). Servings: 2 — one wrap each.

You can make the filling the night before and keep it in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 24 hours. Assemble the wrap in the morning; that's the one step not worth doing in advance.

Ingredients

For 2 servings:

• 2 wholemeal tortillas, 60 g each (120 g total)
• 160 g tuna in spring water (2 tins, drained weight)
• 100 g Greek yoghurt, 2% fat
• 10 g mustard
• 10 ml lemon juice
• 60 g tinned sweetcorn, drained
• 80 g cucumber
• 80 g red pepper
• 40 g lettuce or rocket
• 30 g red onion
• 5 ml olive oil
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Method

1. Drain the tuna properly — press it down with a fork against the tin lid and wait about thirty seconds for the last of the liquid to run out. Wet tuna is the number one reason a wrap falls apart.
2. Halve the cucumber lengthways, scrape out the seeded centre with a teaspoon, then dice the rest into half-centimetre cubes. That centre is essentially water.
3. Dice the pepper finely and slice the red onion into thin half-moons, then rinse it under cold water and drain. It loses the harsh edge and stops dominating the filling.
4. In a bowl, mix the Greek yoghurt, mustard, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. The sauce should stay thick, closer to soured cream than to a salad dressing.
5. Add the drained tuna, sweetcorn, cucumber, pepper and onion, and stir with a fork until everything is coated. Taste and adjust the salt.
6. Warm the tortillas for 30 to 60 seconds per side in a dry pan. Warm tortillas fold without splitting; cold ones crack straight down the middle.
7. Lay 20 g of lettuce on each tortilla first, then spoon half the filling on top in a strip about 8 cm wide, sitting in the lower third. The leaves underneath act as a moisture barrier.
8. Fold the left and right sides in, then roll firmly from the bottom up. Wrap in baking paper and cut across the middle at an angle.

Nutrition per serving

These are an estimate per serving (one wrap), calculated from the quantities listed above. Real numbers depend on the tortilla and the tin you buy, so expect around ten per cent either way.

• Calories: about 370 kcal
• Protein: about 31 g
• Carbohydrates: about 41 g
• Fat: about 9 g

That fits inside most daily calorie budgets, and the protein is roughly on par with a protein smoothie made without protein powder. If 370 kcal is too light for your lunch, add fruit or a handful of walnuts on the side rather than bulking up the filling.

Variations and swaps

The same sauce works with chicken if you get bored of tuna by Wednesday: 100 g of cooked chicken breast per wrap gives a similar profile, and there's a fuller version in the chicken tortilla with yoghurt sauce recipe.

• More protein: one hard-boiled egg per wrap adds roughly 6 g of protein and 70 kcal.
• Fewer carbs: swap the tortilla for two large lettuce leaves, or use a 40 g tortilla (about 60 kcal less).
• Creamier: replace 15 g of the yoghurt with 15 g of light mayonnaise — about 25 kcal more, and a change in texture rather than flavour.
• Spicier: a teaspoon of sriracha or a chopped chilli stirred into the sauce, with no meaningful calorie cost.
• No yoghurt: 60 g of ripe avocado mashed with a fork instead — around 100 kcal more and 8 g less protein.

For transport, wrap it in baking paper and put it in a box, with an ice pack if lunch is more than three hours away. Fish mixed with yoghurt does not cope well with half a day at 25 °C. If you plan meals a week at a time, this rotates nicely against something hot like a chicken rice bowl with vegetables.

When to see a doctor

Tinned tuna is fine for most adults a few times a week. If you're pregnant, breastfeeding, or planning this for young children, ask your GP or a dietitian about how much higher-mercury fish is sensible. The same goes if you have kidney disease or have been told to limit salt — tinned tuna and sweetcorn carry more sodium than they appear to.

In short

Well-drained tuna, deseeded cucumber and a thick yoghurt sauce instead of a runny one are the three things that keep this wrap intact through a morning in your bag. Make the filling the night before, roll it in the morning, and you have a 370 kcal lunch with 31 g of protein that you can eat with one hand, no microwave and no plate.