Time is not always a luxury afforded to a family with three school-aged children. With the onset of the school year, we find ourselves more hurried (or harried) than was the summer norm. It’d be cloyingly optimistic to assume that each school night meal would be a dazzling display of culinary craftsmanship. It’s good to do one’s best to enjoy the moment. At least we are able to laugh at during (well, to be frank sometimes, at) our meal. Yeah, sometimes it’s okay to have fun at your meal’s expense. That said, there is nothing ignoble about a tuna sandwich, especially when it has been given the royal chili treatment.
Ingredients:
(I have listed these on a per can basis. Each can serves about 2 hungry chiliheads).
CHILI INGREDIENTS:
1 Can (5 oz) tuna, drained
1 T mayo
1 T ketchup
2 t chili powder
1 t Louisiana hot sauce
¼ C finely diced pickles
REST OF SANDWICH:
Lettuce
Bread
Directions:
- In a bowl, mix chili ingredients.
- Allow the chili to “rest” in the refrigerator for 1 hour. This will allow the flavors to meld.
- Use chili ingredients, lettuce, and bread to assemble the sandwich.
- Serve with potato salad.
Chili Tuna Salad Sandwich
Tasting notes:
Life isn’t about getting what you want, more sagaciously, it is about working with what you have. I didn’t have all the ingredients I had wanted to use in the recipe, but I rolled with it. As a bonus, I made a big batch of aronia berry cookies. Have you ever had aronia berries? They are super-high in antioxidants, resplendently blue, and taste like total shit. Good thing the cookies were tasty. I need to figure out what magic I can work in order to make palatable the remaining two pounds of berries.
The chili tuna sandwich a very nice departure from standard sandwich fare. The chili flavor and pickles negated any perceivable metallic flavor that is, at times, imparted by the tuna can. I particularly enjoyed the use of ketchup in place of a portion of the mayo. Too often it seems that a tuna salad sandwich suffers from going OM (over-mayo). The ITP sounded off with tempered praise (Chili Jr. used the word “stingy” but in a complimentary way). None of the Involuntary Tasters were robust tuna eaters a priori. Each gamely ate the tuna (and the aronia cookies which, again, turned out to be delicious). For may taste, I hope that I will be tasting the tuna and cookies again.
chili365 
I usually go with celery for my green crunchy bits in tuna salad but I’ll have to remember to sneak pickles in next time. Someday, someday my children will learn to enjoy pickles at the very least as an ingredient if not a stand-alone foodstuff.
It is always best to approach children with the most dreadful threat you are able to dream up. For example, you could say, “Eat these pickles or I’ll make nothing but chili for an entire year.”
Let me know if it works.