The ingredients were a little pricey but it made for a delicious homemade lunch. Lara Walsh
I made Ina Garten’s tuna melt recipe, which is quick and easy to make.
In the end, this was one of the best tuna melts I’ve ever had, and it was easy to make too.
In the future, I plan to use this recipe to make regular tuna salad sandwiches as well.
Ina Garten has become known for creating family favorites like the perfect roast chicken and beef bourguignon.
While we’d all love to eat her gourmet meals every day, it’s not always practical to spend your entire lunch break whipping up one of the TV personality’s many recipes. Luckily, Garten has some easy recipes up her sleeve, like this 10-minute tuna melt sandwich.
This recipe uses some pantry staples that you usually have on hand, as well as fresh produce like scallions, microgreens, celery, and dill.
As someone who loves a good tuna sandwich, I was curious to see if this dish could replace my pricey lunchtime takeout order.
First, I gathered the materials.
In the end, the total cost of materials was a little higher. Lara Walsh
Garten specifies using imported tuna marinated in olive oil, so I opted for two cans of Genoa yellowfin tuna rather than the water-based cans of tuna I usually use.
At the Jewel-Osco I frequented, it was surprisingly hard to find Swiss cheese that wasn’t in sandwich slice form, let alone the Emmental she recommended, so I opted instead for a similarly flavored Swiss Gruyere AOP.
I also purchased celery, green onions, fresh dill, lemon, anchovy paste, and bread, and I already had the avocado oil mayonnaise in the house, so I used that in the recipe.
The Barefoot Contessa tuna melt recipe also called for microgreens, but I don’t like their grassy taste so I left them out.
My receipt ended up coming to about $35, or about $8.75 per serving, which I felt was a bit pricey for a tuna melt sandwich.
First, I drained the oil from the tuna and then shredded it with a fork in a bowl.
The creamy texture of the tuna made it easy to break apart. Lara Walsh
Even though most of the oil had been drained off, the tuna had a creamy texture and shredded easily. I cut the celery into 1/4 inch pieces and diced the green onions and dill and added them to the tuna mixture.
Next, cut up one fresh lemon and squeeze in 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Next, add 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt and 3/4 teaspoon of pepper and mix the ingredients together.
Next I added mayonnaise and anchovy paste to create a creamy mixture.
The anchovy paste didn’t look appetizing at first, but soon blended with the rest of the mixture. Lara Walsh
The addition of mayonnaise made it creamy, and the anchovy paste didn’t look very appetizing at first, but it quickly blended into the tuna mix.
I turned on the broiler to preheat and toasted two slices of bread.
Each slice of bread is topped with plenty of tuna. Lara Walsh
Once the bread is toasted, place the slices in a baking dish and spread a thick layer of the tuna mixture on top of each slice.
Garten recommends using about a quarter of the mixture per slice of bread, but that seemed like too little, so I added a bit more tuna.
After grating the cheese over the tuna mixture, I popped the sandwiches in the oven.
Once the cheese had started to melt, I removed the tuna melt from the oven. Lara Walsh
I grated the cheese over the tuna mixture and placed the open faced sandwiches in the oven to cook for about 3 minutes each.
I waited until the cheese was melted and starting to brown before removing the tuna melts from the oven and serving.
The first time I tried Garten’s Tuna Melt, it was delicious.
The flavours blended well together and the ingredients formed a great texture. Lara Walsh
The combination of olive oil, melted cheese, and creamy mayonnaise gave the tuna a much richer flavor than I’m used to. Fresh lemon juice cuts down the richness a bit, and green onions, fresh dill, and diced celery add fresh flavor and texture.
I also liked that the bread didn’t get soggy, even after I finished a few emails before eating my second tuna melt, probably because it was toasted.
The sandwich was tasty, but I would try something a little different next time.
Next time I’ll try reducing the amount of salt and adding chives. Lara Walsh
The anchovy paste added a bit more flavor and umami to the sandwich, but it was quite salty. I will use less salt in the future.
It’s delicious as is, but I think adding something salty like capers makes this tuna melt even more delicious.
Because of the fresh ingredients and crunch of the sandwich, I didn’t miss the microgreens at all, and they just seemed like a disposable, expensive topping that added to the cost of the meal.
My main complaint is that Garten’s tuna sandwich recipe didn’t include as many fillings as I would have liked.
I plan to continue adding this sandwich to my lunch menu. Lara Walsh
After my boyfriend and I devoured our tuna melts, we were disappointed that there weren’t more left, especially considering they were relatively pricey and were supposed to serve four people.
But considering how quick it is to make and how delicious the end product is, this tuna melt sandwich will definitely become a staple in my lunch routine—though next time I’ll tweak it a bit to make it a bit more budget-friendly.
