No Mayo Tuna Salad

When you think of tuna salad, it's easy to picture that mushy scoop of tuna with some minuscule flecks of relish served in school cafeterias..oh have I lost you already? Don't be discouraged this is not the same breed! My sister-in-law detests mayonnaise and happened to make this one day while I was visiting, and I was forever changed. Imagine large chunks of crunchy dill pickles, recognizable pieces of hard-boiled egg, and a yummy refreshing creaminess to hold it all together without mayo! The best part of this recipe is that it can easily be doubled to make a larger amount, which comes in handy if your husband and kid come sniffing around the kitchen, find out what you're up to, and demand that you share.

      

By the way, see that amazing looking bread cup holding the tuna salad? That, my friends, is what I like to call a toast cup. I can't remember where I saw this idea, but it is the most amazing food vessel known to mommy-kind. With this mere "toast cup" I can get Trevor, my 2 year old, to eat just about any sandwich fixings I want! Kids go crazy for it, so I've decided to add the instructions at the end of this post. You can sing my praises later. So let's get started shall we?

What You'll Need:

1 can of solid white tuna (albacore) packed in water, drained

3 hard-boiled eggs

3 deli style pickles, roughly chopped

1 teaspoon of sweet pickle relish

1 teaspoon of yellow mustard

1 teaspoon of the juice from the deli style pickle jar 

Salt and pepper to taste

First, peel and roughly chop your hard-boiled eggs.

I am not only a hungry housewife, I am a bored housewife. Please don't feel bad for the eggs, they're going to a better place.

After your eggs are roughly chopped (I hope you haven't named them yet because it really doesn't help the process, trust me.), chop your deli style pickles in the same fashion. Once everything is chopped and eulogies are said for the fallen eggs add everything into a medium sized bowl, including the tuna, relish, mustard, and pickle juice. If it seems too dry, add small amounts of more pickle juice until it reaches a creamy but not runny consistency. Add salt and pepper to your own personal tastes. After that just slap it on  some sandwich bread or spoon it into a toast cup. Or, if you feel so inclined, scarf it down straight from the bowl, standing over your sink..I wont judge you if you do, promise.

Makes 2 sandwiches or 4 toast cups.

And now my super easy toast cups recipe. Honestly, I don't even know if you can call this a recipe because it is that easy. Why every mom in the world doesn't already have this in her arsenal of "sneaky tricks to get child to eat" collection is completely beyond me. 

First preheat your oven to 375 degrees and slice off the crusts of however many pieces of sandwich bread you want to make. I prefer whole wheat bread, but really any kind of sandwich bread will do.

While you're waiting for the oven to finish preheating, nibble on the cut off bread crusts and start assembling your pieces of bread in a muffin tin. The easiest way I've found to do this is lay the slice flat over a muffin space and then gently stuff the middle of the bread slice in, push it into the bottom until its flat, and then do the same to the sides. It should end up looking like this:

If there are tears or anything it's really not a big deal , you just want it to have the general shape of a cup. Pop it into the oven and let it bake 5-10 mins or until it's toasted. See, how easy was that? You don't just have to stuff it with tuna salad either. Some other really good fillings are peanut butter and banana, peanut butter and strawberry preserves, ham and cheddar cheese cubes, cream cheese and raisins, or my ultimate favorite: scrambled eggs, crumbled bacon, and cheddar cheese. If you have any other good ideas for fillings please share it in a comment below!