Tuna Casserole {grain-free, dairy-free, paleo compliant}

Did you grow up with Tuna Casserole? Also referred to as Tuna Fish Casserole, which I always found redundant but was a commonly used title for this divine revelation of a casserole. I think I loved this so much as a child because I loved cream of mushroom soup, I still do. Anything that used cream of mushroom soup was my favorite. I remember just slurping up a bowl of cream of mushroom soup often for lunch. Nowadays I don't really like using the canned condensed soup as much, because Brant couldn't eat it for one and that dairy/wheat/gluten combination makes me feel awful in my old age.

Luckily someone thought of using cashews + a broth as a dairy-free, weird ingredient-free "cheesy" sauce. An extra dose of magnesium through the cashews, and no feelings of digestive regret!

What truly makes this dish though, is the Jovial Cassava noodles. We've used the cassava spaghetti noodles before, for grain-free family spaghetti night, but I ordered some of the elbow macaroni style noodles and have been excited to create a tuna casserole that our whole family could enjoy. These cassava noodles are shelf stable and have a consistency of a lighter whole-wheat noodle if you've ever tried that... but of course, no wheat in these noodles at all!

I simply boiled the noodles for a little less than the package cooking time, since I planned to bake them more in the casserole, then mixed the noodles with the canned tuna, cilantro, and salt and pepper then set aside. I had some onions caramelizing in a bit of grass fed butter, then I added thinly sliced mushrooms at the end and cooked until soft. Those went into the pasta mix too! Then I made my sauce: blending broth and cashews until very smooth and creamy and added that to a cassava flour roux on the stove top to make the "cheese" base. I then stirred in the salt, pepper, and the nutritional yeast. All that's left is to mix the sauce into the pasta mixture, and bake at 400F until crunchy on top. A few steps, since everything is from scratch to control the ingredients, but it's simple and worth having some easy left overs!

I hope you like this one! And, this might be a Canadian thing, but sometimes tuna casserole tastes good with a little bit of ketchup! Let me know below if you would EVER do such a thing!

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