15 delicious dinners starring canned tuna
Throw open my kitchen cabinet doors and you’ll find a host of goodies: baking ingredients and dried goods on one side, a myriad of spices and tins along the other. My husband and I adore tinned things, especially those housing oily, briny, rich-in-flavor sardines, tuna, and shellfish. These have served their duty time and time again as easy weeknight «dinners» when we are just too tired to fire up the stove — we just grab a crusty baguette on our way home from work, and pop a tin open when we get home. Doesn’t get easier than that.
Canned or jarred tuna serves as one of our most reliable pantry soldiers. Whether it’s packed in oil or water, imported from afar or grabbed off the shelves of the supermarket downstairs, preserved tuna is beloved any which way: folded into pasta; heaped upon bread; hidden in rice balls; even added into recipes that don’t originally call for tuna, but would taste mighty fine with their addition.
Lean on these tuna can-friendly dishes during your busy weeknights.
We’ll never say no to a tuna salad1. Low-key Niçoise salad
(Bobbi Lin/Courtesy Food52)2. Kill two birds and eat tuna salad for lunch(Courtesy Food52)
Tuna, tangled up3. Tuna and noodles with kimchi
(Bobbi Lin/Courtesy Food52)4. First night in Florence spaghetti(Julia Gartland/Courtesy Food52)5. Tuna noodle casserole — redux
(Courtesy Food52)6. Zuni’s pasta with preserved tuna(James Ransom/Courtesy Food52)7. Noodles with tuna and peas («tuna pea wiggle»)(Alpha Smoot/Courtesy Food52)
Tuna sandwiches with a French twist8. Pan bagnat: French tuna salad sandwich(Courtesy Food52)9. Provençal tuna melt
(James Ransom/Courtesy Food52)
Rice is always nice10. How to make onigiri (Japanese rice balls) any which way(Julia Gartland/Courtesy Food52)
Just add tuna11. Pasta puttanesca
(James Ransom/Courtesy Food52)12. Curried chickpea sandwich
(Bobbi Lin/Courtesy Food52)13. Jaengban guksu (Korean-style soba noodles with spicy dressing)(James Ransom/Courtesy Food52)14. Back-pocket canned salad
(James Ransom/Courtesy Food52)15. A handy guide to mixed grain rice bowls (no recipes needed!)
(Rocky Luten/Courtesy Food52)
This story was originally published on Food52.com: 15 ways to turn a can of tuna into a weeknight hero.