We all love treats, and you can find several commercial cat treats for your kitty. But have you ever considered making your own? Making cat treats isn’t as difficult as you might think, and most recipes involve few ingredients and little preparation. Tuna is a favorite of felines everywhere, and it’s a nutritious ingredient to put in homemade cat treats.
Pumpkin is also ideal for cat treats because the fiber helps fill the cats up to keep hunger at bay and contributes to a healthy digestive tract. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of tuna + pumpkin cat treat recipes available, but there are a few. However, you can tweak other recipes and substitute ingredients to make your own tuna pumpkin recipes.
Take a look at these yummy treats for cats!
Before You Start
Before you prepare treats for your furry pal, there are a few things you should know.
- Always check with your vet before feeding human food to your cat to ensure it’s safe. Tuna and pumpkin should be fine for most felines, but some cats may need to avoid these foods because of health conditions or allergies.
- Cats shouldn’t eat too much tuna since it can contain high levels of mercury.
- Any tuna fed to your pet should be free of oil, spices, and seasonings. These ingredients can make your cat ill or even be toxic, as is the case with ingredients like onion or garlic.
- Do not feed your cat canned pumpkin pie filling! Plain pumpkin in a can and pumpkin pie filling in a can look very similar, but the filling has added ingredients, such as sugar, that are unhealthy for the cat. Pumpkin pie filling can also contain nutmeg, which is toxic to cats.
- Other ingredients to avoid in homemade cat treats include xylitol, yeast dough, raisins, salt, and dairy.
Top 3 Tuna Pumpkin Cat Treat Recipes
1. Tuna Pumpkin Cookies With Catnip (Optional)
Catnip Tuna Pumpkin Delights
Equipment
- Bowl
- Roller
- Cookie Sheet
Ingredients
- 1 5-oz can of tuna in water
- 1/3 cup pumpkin
- 1/2 cup oat flour
- 1 tsp dried catnip optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix until you get a dough.
- Roll out the dough, then form it into small balls or cut-out shapes.
- Put rolled or cut-out dough on lightly greased cookie sheets.
- Bake for around 15 minutes (or until edges are browned).
- Let it cool, then feed it to your kitty.
Notes
2. Tuna Pumpkin Biscotti
Then, there’s this recipe from Chewy!
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
- 1 can low-sodium tuna in water (not drained)
- 1 egg
- 1 cup whole spelt flour
- 2 tbsp EVOO
- Pinch of salt
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Mix ingredients in a bowl.
- Line the cookie sheet with waxed or parchment paper.
- Spread dough on sheet (approximately 1/8 inch thick).
- Bake for 20 minutes.
- Allow to cool for 5 minutes.
- Flip the treats so the waxed or parchment paper is on top; peel off the paper.
- Bake for another 8 minutes.
- Turn the oven off, but let the treats sit for about 1 hour.
- Once done, remove and let the treats cool, then cut them into strips.
- Treats can be stored in a freezer or refrigerator.
3. Pumpkin and Tuna Omelet
This one comes from Catster’s list of 12 Vet Approved Homemade Cat Treats
Ingredients:
- 1 egg
- ¼ tin of tuna in spring water (not oil or brine), drained
- 40 grams (1.4 ounces) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
- 50 grams (1.7 ounces) butternut pumpkin, grated
Whisk/scramble the egg and combine it with the tuna, spinach, and pumpkin. Pour it into a frying pan to cook, adding some catnip to season. Flip after a few minutes, and cut it into quarters to serve. Don’t worry if your omelet looks more like scrambled eggs; your cat won’t care!
Although we only found a few tuna + pumpkin recipes online, plenty of other recipes call for similar items, such as sardines and or sweet potato. Switching out sardines for tuna should be simple enough. You’ll have to get a bit creative to make tuna pumpkin cat treat recipes for your favorite feline!
Conclusion
Making homemade cat treats for your cat can be a lot of fun, and you’ll know exactly what’s in the treats, so you don’t need to worry about unhealthy ingredients. Tuna and pumpkin cat treats are excellent for your pet because felines adore tuna, and many also enjoy pumpkin.
The recipes we discovered are fairly simple to make and don’t take too long to prepare. Plus, you can get creative with other pumpkin cat treat recipes by adding tuna and tweaking them as needed. No matter what kind of tuna + pumpkin treat you make, your kitty will surely be thrilled!
Featured Image Credit: Chalabala, Shutterstock
