I love inexpensive family meals and for meals that include meat, it doesn’t get much more inexpensive than a meal made with tuna. Most of the time you can find canned tuna on sale for less than $0.75 per can which makes it an incredibly affordable way to feed your family. One of my favorite recipes that uses tuna is my Grown Up Tuna Noodle Casserole recipe, but this easy tuna salad sliders recipe comes in a close second.
I’m certain we’ve all had sloppy tuna salad where the tuna was soggy, the vegetables weren’t crisp and the amount of mayo made it seem like you were eating nothing but a spoonful of mayo. It was batches that my Mom made that way that turned me off to tuna salad for so long. I loved that woman with everything I had, but if I were being honest, she wasn’t much of a cook. This easy tuna salad slider recipe, however, redeemed the classic tuna salad recipe in my mind. No longer soggy, bursting with so much flavor and on buns that are 100% perfect for this recipe, it bursts with serious flavor where other recipes have left things lacking to put it mildly.
Simple Tuna Salad Sliders Recipe
This is one of our favorite lunch recipes in our house, but it’s also perfect for those long days where your really just want a light dinner and a cheap family meal combined. It’s awesome because it comes together so quickly, but it tastes amazing too! If you want to customize the recipe a bit, feel free. It’s tuna salad so it isn’t exactly rocket science for making a good sandwich. Leave out the egg if you don’t like hard boiled egg. Skip the red onion if you aren’t a fan. No matter how you “slice” it, this sandwich is good. In fact? I like to add cheese to it a lot of the time. A thick slice of cheddar goes very well with this as an easy lunch idea!
This easy tuna salad sliders also makes a great school lunch idea or a great recipe for brown bagging it at work. Make it up the night before and keep it cool when the kids are at school or are waiting for lunch and it’ll be an amazing mid-day meal. If you are packing a lunch with it, I would store the tuna salad portion separately in an air-tight food storage container from the bread so your bread doesn’t get soggy.
Looking for another great and inexpensive school lunch idea? Give our homemade Uncrustables recipe a try!
You Will Need:
- 2 Cans Tuna in water or oil, drained
- ¼ Cup Mayonnaise
- 1 hard boiled egg
- 1 Celery stalk, leaves and stem removed
- 2 Tablespoon red onion
- 1 Lime
- Salt
- Pepper
- 2 Roma Tomatoes
- Baby Spinach
- Wheat sandwich rolls
Ready for how quickly this comes together? For prep work, hard boil the egg then chop to the size that you like. If you want to make this super easy on yourself, use an Instant Pot to hard boil your eggs. Simply add them to your steamer basket or egg insert and add enough water to meet the bottom mark on your Instant Pot. Bring it to pressure and allow it to cook for exactly 60 seconds. Let the pressure come down naturally and your eggs are done!
Otherwise, while the egg is boiling, use a lemon squeezer to juice the lime, finely chop the celery and red onion then slice the tomatoes. Drain the tuna very well using a fine mesh strainer. Doing it this way instead of straight out of the can gives you the chance to inspect the tuna to be certain there aren’t any small bones floating around where they shouldn’t be.
Once you’ve got your prep work done, combine all of the ingredients in a medium mixing bowl and mix very well.
Slice your buns in half then layer the spinach, tomato, cheese if using and finally, your tuna salad. Top with the other half of the bun and enjoy!
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