Kick-Ass Sweet Potato-Tuna Cakes

My friend Sam is a lot of awesome things, but one of the things he is, is a eater. The man loves food and he loves to cook. He's also a workout fiend, so he keeps an eye out for high-protein and low-fat recipes. He cued me on to this little recipe, and we decided to get together and make ourselves some grubs!

The last time we cooked together, Sam and I made some bacon cupcakes. These sweet potato-tuna cakes are infinitely healthier, but just as delicious! They are also remarkably easy to whip up and can be made in advance. It's very low-fat, and quite filling! A nice trick to have up your sleeve!

Sweet potatoes are very fashionable lately: it seems to me that I see recipes including the lovely orange root veg all over the place. They contain more potassium than bananas and are very rich in vitamins A and C, iron, calcium and protein, so sweet potatoes are a pretty kick-ass vegetable. Not to mention that their unique taste make them very versatile. They can be use as an alternative to good old regular potatoes in savory dishes, but they are also often used in desserts!

For this recipe, I paired them with some savory fresh herbs and highlighted their sweet, exotic flavor with a hint of nutmeg. Nutmeg is my favorite spice to mix in with sweet potatoes: I sprinkled some in the last time I made sweet potato mash and got hooked! Give it a try, it's delicious!

2 large eggs
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 teaspoon nutmeg

2 tablespoons fresh dill, chopped

2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
2 cans tuna, drained
1 large sweet potato, boiled, cooled and cut into small chunks
3 teaspoons Tabasco sauce
1/2 cup breadcrumbs or oat flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

Scrunch everything together with clean hands until well mixed. Divide the mixture into 8 patties and place them on the baking sheet.

Cook for 20 minutes; flip the patties over, and cook for an additional 10 minutes.

We ate those with some salad, but they would make great sandwich fillers! I highly recommend doubling your recipe and freezing the extra mixture so you can have post-workout snacks within reach. I don't do gyms, but I bike every day as soon as the weather gets decent enough, and having a bite before I hop on my wheels always helps (if we did things in the right order, we would eat in order to be able to move more, but we tend to do it backwards and move so we can eat more...). Those patties can be quickly reheated, chomped down and washed down with a glass of milk to get you ready for some exercise!

This is an especially good recipe to have handy if you are lazy, or having really long work days that leave you little time to get cooking. It comes together very easily, and you could play with the spices to your heart's content, and even shake it up by using canned crab meat instead of tuna! Use cilantro instead of dill, finely grated fresh ginger instead of nutmeg and lime juice instead of Tabasco, and you have a great Asian twist on the original recipe! Serve them with ketchup or chutney, or even with a squirt of Sriracha if you can take the heat.