Tuna Melt
The tuna is drained hard and the mix is stiffer than a sandwich filling, because the cheese melting into it will loosen everything.
- Prep
- 10 min
- Cook
- 12 min
- Resting
- 2 min
- Total
- 24 min
- Serves
- 2
- Revisions
- 1
Allergens
- Celery
- Cereals containing gluten
- Eggs
- Fish
- Milk
- Mustard
- Sulphites
Named from the ingredients as written, including those carried in from sub-recipes. This is not a guarantee — check the labels on what you actually buy, and note that a product’s recipe can change.
Ingredients
Serves
Filling
Toastie
Method
Filling
Drain the tuna hard, pressing it down in the tin, then tip it into a bowl and flake it with a fork.
Add the mayonnaise, mustard, celery, gherkin, onion, lemon juice and pepper, and mix.
Aim for a mixture that holds its shape on a spoon rather than one that spreads. The cheese melting into it will loosen everything considerably, and a wet mix runs out of the sides and steams the bread from inside.
Toastie
Spread mayonnaise on one face of each slice of bread, right to the edges, and turn two of them over.
Divide the tuna between the two dry faces and spread it to a 1cm border.
Cover with the grated Cheddar and top with the remaining slices, mayonnaise side out.
Melt the butter in a heavy pan over low heat and lay the sandwiches in.
Cook for 5 to 6 minutes a side, pressing gently, until deep golden and the cheese has visibly melted into the filling at the edges.
Low and slow again: the filling is cold in the middle and needs time to warm through before the outside is done.
Rest for 2 minutes, then cut in half.
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What to expect
- Taste
Savoury and rich, with sharp bursts from the gherkin and a lemon lift at the end. The cheese is doing salt and depth; the tuna is quieter than people expect and the dish is built around that.
- Aroma
Toasting bread and melting cheese, with the tuna barely detectable, which is the correct balance.
- Texture
Crisp outside, soft filling, and then the crunch of the raw vegetables through it. The vegetables are the reason it is worth eating.
- Sound
A quiet sizzle, then the cut.
- How the flavour moves
Toast and cheese first, then the savoury filling, then acid and crunch, then a clean lemon finish.
- Serve it
Hot through. A cold centre is the usual failure.
- Goes with
A sharp pickle, crisps, or tomato soup. Tea.
Cook's notes
- Difficulty
Beginner.
- Cost
Very low.
- Equipment
A heavy frying pan.
- When to make it
Lunch, from the cupboard.
- Best season
None.
- You know it is done when
Deep even gold on both faces, and cheese melted into the tuna at the edges rather than sitting on top of it.
- And it feels like
The filling should be hot and just loosened, not liquid. Crisp bread throughout.
- Food safety
Everything is cooked or canned. Nothing unusual.
- Where it goes wrong
- A wet filling, which steams the bread from inside.
- Not draining the tin properly.
- No acid and no crunch, which is why the standard version is dull.
- Too much heat, so the outside is done before the filling is warm.
- Filling to the edges, which pushes out and burns.
- If it does go wrong
Soggy: the filling was too wet or the tuna undrained. Cold middle: lower heat, longer. Bland: lemon and salt, and more gherkin. Falling apart: soft bread; use something with structure.
- Making it ahead
The filling, up to two days ahead, which makes this a five-minute lunch.
- Keeping it
The filling keeps two days in the fridge. The sandwich does not keep at all.
- Reheating
No.
- Freezing
No.
- Leftovers
The filling on its own, on toast or in a jacket potato.
- Scaling it
Two at a time in a large pan.
- Substitutions
Tinned salmon works. Sourdough or any bread with structure; soft sliced white collapses under a hot wet filling.
- Dietary swaps
Contains gluten, milk, fish, and eggs, mustard, celery and sulphites from the mayonnaise and the filling. Pescatarian. Nut free.
- Shopping for it
Skipjack rather than yellowfin or bigeye, and pole-and-line or FAD-free on the tin.
- Keeping the cost down
Already among the cheapest things here.
- Sustainability
As with any tinned tuna dish, the species and the fishing method matter more than the brand. Skipjack is the most abundant tuna and most stocks are in reasonable condition; yellowfin and especially bigeye are under far more pressure. Purse-seining with fish aggregating devices takes large quantities of juveniles and other species as bycatch, while pole-and-line and FAD-free methods take far less. Both facts are usually printed on the tin, and reading them is the whole of the decision.
- Nutrition
High protein, and the mayonnaise and cheese carry the fat.
- Worth it?
Three finely diced crunchy things and a squeeze of lemon, and it stops being a stodgy sandwich.
Where it comes from
- Origin
The American lunch counter.
- Also called
Tuna melt.
- Said out loud
Straightforward.
- What the name means
Descriptive — tuna salad with cheese melted over it.
- History
The dish depends entirely on canned tuna, which became a cheap American staple in the first half of the twentieth century, and on the diner griddle. Tuna salad sandwiches predate the melt; adding cheese and griddling the whole thing is the innovation, and it belongs to mid-century lunch counters rather than to any documented moment.
- Why it matters
A diner and café standard in America, and a slightly less established but growing one in Britain.
- When it is eaten
Lunch, and a cupboard dinner.
- The traditional way
Tuna salad, cheese, griddled between buttered bread.
- How it changed
Very little.
- Regional variations
Open-faced under a grill, which is common and gives a different, less crisp result.
- How this version differs
The filling is deliberately stiffer and contains three crunchy things, and the outside is mayonnaise rather than butter.
- Sources and credit
None.
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