Ina Garten has become a household name for cooking comfort-food staples like her perfect roast chicken and beef bourguignon.
As much as I'd love one of her gourmet meals in the middle of each day, using my entire lunch hour to whip up something from the TV personality's arsenal of recipes isn't always realistic. Fortunately, Garten has a few quick recipes up her sleeves, including a 10-minute take on a tuna-melt sandwich.
The recipe uses pantry-staple ingredients I usually have on hand, as well as fresh elements like green onions, microgreens, celery, and dill.
As someone who loves a good tuna sandwich, I was curious to see if this dish could replace my expensive lunchtime takeout orders. Here's how it went.
To start, I gathered my ingredients.The total cost of the ingredients ended up being a little bit pricey.
Lara Walsh
Garten specifies using imported tuna packed in olive oil, so I chose two cans of Genova yellowfin tuna instead of the water-based ones I normally use.
It was shockingly hard to find Swiss cheese that wasn't in the form of sandwich slices at my Jewel-Osco — let alone the Emmentaler that she suggested. I decided to use a Swiss Gruyere AOP instead, which had a similar flavor.
I also picked up celery, scallions, fresh dill, a lemon, anchovy paste, and bread. I already had avocado-oil mayo at home, so I used that for the recipe.
The "Barefoot Contessa's" tuna-melt recipe also called for microgreens, but I left them out as I'm not a fan of their grassy flavor.
My receipt ended up coming out to about $35, or roughly $8.75 per serving — which I found to be a little pricey for a tuna-melt sandwich.
I began by draining the oil from the tuna and flaking it with a fork in a bowl.The tuna's creamy texture made it easy to flake.
Lara Walsh
Even though I drained most of the oil, the tuna seemed to have a creamy texture and flaked easily. I chopped the celery into quarter-inch pieces, diced the green onions and dill, and added them to the tuna mixture.
Next, I cut a fresh lemon and squeezed out 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. I then added 1½ teaspoons of salt and three-quarters of a teaspoon of pepper, mixing to combine the ingredients.
I then added the mayo and anchovy paste to make the mixture creamy.The anchovy paste didn't look appealing at first, but it quickly blended in with the rest of the mixture.
Lara Walsh
I added the mayo, which made the mixture creamy, and the anchovy paste, which looked a little unappetizing at first. However, it quickly assimilated into the tuna mixture when I put it in.
I turned on the broiler to preheat, then toasted two slices of bread. I put a healthy serving of tuna on each slice of bread.
Lara Walsh
After the bread was done toasting, I put the slices in a baking dish and spread a thick layer of the tuna mixture on each piece.
While Garten suggests using about a quarter of the mixture for each slice of bread, I added a little more tuna since it otherwise seemed to be a small serving.
After grating cheese over the tuna mixture, I popped the sandwiches in the oven.I took the tuna melts out of the oven just as the cheese started to melt.
Lara Walsh
I grated the cheese on top of the tuna mixture, then placed the open-faced sandwiches in the oven to broil for about 3 minutes each.
I waited until the cheese just started to melt and brown before taking the tuna melts out of the oven to serve.
My first bite of Garten’s tuna melt was heavenly.The flavors meshed together well, and the ingredients formed a great texture.
Lara Walsh
The combination of olive oil, melted cheese, and creamy mayonnaise made the tuna taste much richer than I'm used to. The fresh-lemon juice cut through some of that richness, while the green onions, fresh dill, and diced celery added some fresh flavor and texture.
I also liked that the bread didn't get soggy, even after I finished up some emails before eating my second tuna-melt slice. I think this was probably because the bread was toasted.
The sandwich was delicious, but I'd make a few changes next time.Next time, I'll reduce the amount of salt used and maybe add chives.
Lara Walsh
The anchovy paste added a little extra savory umami flavor to the sandwich, but it also made it saltier. In the future, I'll reduce the amount of salt I use.
I also think that adding a briney element like capers could make this tuna melt even better, even though it was already delicious as is.
I really didn't miss the microgreens, thanks to all the fresh ingredients and crunch in the sandwich, and I think it would have just been an expensive throwaway topping that added to the cost of the meal.
My main complaint was that Garten’s tuna-sandwich recipe didn’t yield as much filling as I’d expected.I'll still add the sandwich to my lunch rotation.
Lara Walsh
I was disappointed there wasn't more of the tuna melt left after my boyfriend and I scarfed it down — especially given its relatively high price tag and the fact that it's supposed to be enough for four portions.
However, considering how quick it was to make and how delicious the results were, this tuna-melt sandwich will definitely become a regular in my lunch rotation. Next time, I'll just make some adjustments to make it a little more budget-friendly.
