ASDA Tuna (Asda Smartprice Tuna Chunks)

Member Name: sun-is-shining

Product:	Asda Smartprice Tuna Chunks
Date:	01/08/09 (103 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheap, good taste, healthy

Disadvantages: none

I love tuna and it's a great way for me to reach my protein intake as I don't like meat. The ASDA Smartprice tuna is cheap and of a good quality and the only downside is that the tuna comes in brine instead of water or oil.
If you don't mind the brine I can recommend the tuna chunks - the quality is good and they are a great base for many nice dishes - have a look at the end of my review for my favourite tuna dish.
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Packing

The tuna chunks come in a medium sized flat tin without lid opener - for me a big minus point as I can never find my can opener and have to search for 10min to find it.
The label is the well-known ASDA Smartprice green and white design with all relevant information on the back of the tin and a cute little green fish on the front.
The thing that first caught my eye is the 'dolphin friendly' logo on the front - a movement to protect the dolphins. Thumps up for ASDA as they only use tuna that was caught without harming or killing dolphins; LIDL for example still doesn't use this label.
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Ingredients & Nutrition

The nutritional information per 100g drained tuna is:
* Energy - 101 kcal
* Protein - 24g
* Fat - 0.6g
* Saturates - 0.2g
* Sodium - 0.4g

These nutrition levels make the tuna a healthy and tasty alternative to meat - try a Spaghetti Bolognese with tuna instead of meat! Or my favourite for a quick snack, fry the tuna and add one egg, some salt and pepper, serve on toasted bread.
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Look & Taste

The tuna chunks come in brine - I normally buy them in spring water or sunflower oil and now after trying the ASDA tuna I'll stick to the normal water. I don't mind the taste as much as the smell of the brine - I tried to wash it with clear water but honestly, that's a big waste of time as there are enough alternative products.

The tuna itself is of a good quality, the chunks are not too small; sometimes you have the feeling that you bought tuna sauce instead of tuna chunks but these were fine.

I didn't really like the colour, just a bit to dark with too many extra dark bits in it. But I don't think that it means that the tuna is of a lower quality. It still tastes good and why should I pay more just for a lighter colour?

ASDA informs us on the label that they took extra care to remove all the bones but of course cannot guarantee that it is absolutely bone free. However, I never had any bones in my tuna.
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Price & Value

The price for one tin with 185g and 129.5g when drained is 59p which is a good but not unbeatable price; you can get a Tesco Value can for only 40p. Luckily they're almost always on offer like '3 for 1 Pound' so if you don't have a Tesco in your town you can still make a bargain at ASDA.

Still, it's a good value for its price and I can recommend the tuna if you don't mind the smell/taste of brine.

For me it is 07 out of 10 (-3 for no opener, brine instead of spring water and the darker colour)
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Extra tip

This is not part of the actual review but it's my favourite dish with tuna. So read on if you are looking for a quick and delicious pasta dish

Tuna & caper pasta sauce

- fry one small onion with garlic
- add the content of a tin of drained tuna chunks
- fry till the tuna is dry (roughly 5min)
- add one small glass of capers (50g)
- add 250ml of cream
- put half a OXO vegetable stock cube in the sauce and let it dissolve
- season it with salt, pepper and a hint of lime juice

It takes 10 min and is a great new pasta sauce which is best served with Parmesan cheese on top.

Summary: see review