Tuna Melts

Okay, folks. I've got good news and bad news. The good news? These are so good, and so easy--especially if you already have the tuna sandwich filling made up. We usually make up a batch using 4 cans of tuna and keep it in the fridge so we can have a quick and healthy sandwich any time we want it. The bad news? I don't have exact measurements on the tuna mixture. We just kind of make it up at our house, which used to intimidate me. I'd always get Kirby to mix it up. But finally I decided to put my pride on the line (yes--I was worried it would make me a terrible wife if I failed at mixing tuna sandwich filling), and try it myself and whaddaya know! It was delish.

Here's how I go about mixing it:
Put tuna in a bowl--we usually mix up 4 cans at a time to simplify our lives later on. Throw in a spoonful of mayo, a spoonful or two of sweet relish, and a a spoonful or two of mustard until it's a nice consistency. The end. Tricky, huh? And hey--some people like celery in their tuna. I don't. I pretty much hate celery. So we have relish instead.

On a caloric note--mustard has a fraction of the calories of mayo. So you can always replace some of the mayo you would normally put in with mustard to get the right consistency with fewer calories. Yada yada. Still, though--as long as you aren't drowning your tuna in mayo you'll be throwing together a pretty healthy sandwich!

INGREDIENTS:

Mayo

Mustard

Sweet Pickle Relish

Canned Tuna

4 English Muffins, split and toasted

8 slices ripe tomato

Shredded cheddar cheese

DIRECTIONS:

1.     Take tuna salad mixture (mayo, mustard, relish, and tuna mixed to desired taste—will seem more moist once it’s out of the oven) and spread on the toasted muffin halves and place them on a baking sheet.
Please note that you won't use all four cans worth of tuna filling if that is how much you mix up!

2.     Top each half with a slice of tomato and a small amount of shredded cheddar.

3.     Broil until cheese is melted, about 3 to 5 minutes.
For some reason, our oven makes us set a temperature when we select broil, and we just go with the default 500 degrees...

YIELDS: 8 tuna melts (about 4 servings)

It was so tasty I couldn't help myself and I had to take yet another picture!

What did I learn from this recipe? It is HARD to make melted cheddar cheese look divine on camera. But oh well. You'll just have to take my word for it! :)