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The Broke Chef: Sandwich Salads (Tuna, and more)

Today I woke up HUNGRY, so I spent some time rummaging through the cabinets to see what ingredients I already had. I found a can of tuna somewhere in the deep dark hole that is my pantry. I decided to make a tuna salad out of it, but you can replace tuna with chicken, potato, egg, macaroni, etc.

Ingredients

1 can tuna

2 T sour cream

1 stalk of celery

1/2 c white onion

2 tsp. lemon juice (I prefer squeezing one real lemon into this dish, but I didn’t have a real lemon so lemon juice it was)

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  1. Open can of tuna, rinse and drain.
  2. Dice onion and celery, combine with tuna.
  3. Add sour cream and lemon juice, mix thoroughly.

This is a stoping point at which you could be done. However, if you do enjoy seasoning food then here is what I recommend adding.

 

Thyme, Dill, Pepper, Salt, & Garlic

Of course these are all better if you have access to fresh versions, and if you do use fresh herbs use double to amount you would dry ingredients in order to obtain the same taste. I do not currently have these in fresher versions so I will be using what I already have.

The more you stir, the more broken up the tuna will become, thus allowing it to stick together. If you want chunkier tuna salad then I recommend stirring less.

That’s it, you’re done! Refrigerate for up to a week.

Here are a couple ways I enjoy tuna salad:

Toast bread, apply mustard, layer on spinach, add tuna salad, top with tomato and more mustard.

For this one, apply a layer of tuna salad, then a slice of cheese (I used swiss), and then bake at 400 degrees F for 5 minutes.

Top with a small layer of cold tuna salad and some hot sauce of your choice.

The reason I used tuna is because 1. I already had it and 2. because you can find it as cheap as 50 cents sometimes. It is a great inexpensive protein that you can find in various different colors and types.

If tuna isn’t your thing you can simply replace it with:

Chicken: add celery, red onion, cut red grapes, nuts, lemon juice, yogurt or sour cream, seasoning

Potato: add celery, white onion, mustard, yogurt or sour cream, seasoning

Egg: hard boiled egg, celery, white onion, mustard, yogurt or sour cream, seasoning

Macaroni: cook macaroni, add yogurt or sour cream, white onion, mustard, celery, seasoning.

The reason I used sour cream in this recipe is because I already had it in my fridge. Most of the time when I am making these types of salads I used greek yogurt. A lot of people make these salads using mayonnaise, but I generally attempt to stay away seeing as it isn’t so good for you. If you prefer the taste and texture, by all means do it by your preference. There is a way to make home made mayonnaise that is healthier, but that will be another post.

Hit me up with questions, comments, concerns, ideas, inspirations, thoughts, you name it!

Written by

Hi, my name is Shelby Glee Pratt. I was born and raised in a small town in northern Indiana, and moved to Ohio for my undergraduate degree. I am currently still in the process of obtaining my bachelors in Psychology. Beyond that, I am trying to combine the Culinary world with Psychology. One of my biggest passions in life is cooking. More than being passionate, I am motivated to bring sustainability and ethics to the culinary industry. In my downtime I enjoy reading cook books and magazines, watching documentaries, and traveling, among other things.

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