Open-faced cottage cheese tuna melts
16 min · 27 g protein · 283 cals / serving
The diner tuna melt with cottage cheese doing the mayo's job: tuna mixed with cottage cheese whipped creamy with Dijon and lemon, plus crunchy celery, pickle and red onion, piled on toasted sourdough with a slice of tomato and grilled until the sharp cheddar bubbles and browns. Crisp, creamy and melty in every bite.
Ingredients
- 2 slices (about 40 g each) from a wide loaf sourdough bread
Tuna filling
- 1/2 cup cottage cheese (1%)
- 1 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1 can (5 oz) canned tuna, drained well
- 1 stalk celery, finely diced
- 1 small reduced sodium dill pickles, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp red onions, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp fresh dill, chopped
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1 medium tomato, sliced
- 3 tbsp shredded sharp cheddar cheese
To serve
- 3 pickle spears reduced sodium dill pickles
- 1/2 cucumber, cut into sticks
Steps
- Heat the grill (broiler) to high. Toast the sourdough on one side under the grill for 1–2 minutes until golden, then turn it over.
- Blend or vigorously mash the cottage cheese with the mustard and lemon juice until creamy and mostly smooth. Flake in the tuna and stir in the celery, pickle, red onion, dill and pepper.
- Pile the tuna onto the untoasted side of the bread, right to the edges, lay on the tomato slices and scatter the cheddar over. Grill for 3–4 minutes until the cheese melts, bubbles and browns in spots. Eat hot, with a knife and fork or folded in half, with the pickle spears and cucumber sticks alongside.
Good to know
Why blend the cottage cheese?
Smooth, it coats the tuna like mayo and melts into the hot filling; left curdy, it reads as cottage cheese. A stick blender in a mug does a half cup in seconds.
In a pan instead?
Make it a closed sandwich with a second slice and cook it in a nonstick pan with a light spray of oil over medium heat, 3 minutes a side with a lid on, until the cheese inside melts.
Make the filling ahead?
The tuna filling keeps 2 days in the fridge and doubles as a tuna salad for crackers or lettuce cups.
Alternatives
Per
- Calories
- 75
- Protein
- (38%)
- 7 g
- Fat
- (20%)
- 2 g
- Carbohydrates
- (42%)
- 8 g
- of which sugar
- 2 g
- Fiber
- 1 g
- Sodium
- 198 mg
More snacks
Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. General guidance, not medical advice. Talk to your prescriber. How
As written, 567 kcal goes into the pot and 779 g of ingredients comes out as about 760 g of food: 75 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.