Tuna Melt Recipe (2024)

Instead of buttering the bread, use a little mayonnaise. You're welcome :)

In the mid 1940s I was 13 years old and my mother asked why I put cheese slices in my tuna sandwich and then into the broiler. I had no answer other than I thought of it and it tasted good.

I added pickled onions (apple cider vinegar and maple syrup) as a sandwich ingredient along with avocado. I also slathered each side of my sourdough with Mayo before I toasted it on a buttered griddle. The result was divine - best tuna melt I ever had.

I always add a slice of tomato to my tuna melt topped with a little salt and a lot of cracked black pepper.

Use mayonnaise instead of butter on the outside of the bread!

Tuna doesn’t seem to come in 6 oz portions anymore. The brand I buy is 4.5 oz and the most popular brands are 5 oz. Easy to adapt a simple recipe like this one but others would be well served to reflect this marketing change. Thank you

A stalk or two of celery is a nice addition

Spread a light layer of horseradish between the tuna and the cheese.You'll thank me later.

I’m a huge fan of tuna melts, and I will say this tuna salad recipe is great. However, as many here have noted, I’m used to open faced tuna melts, toasting the bread adding the tuna salad and just melting the cheese under the broiler. I found that preparing this like a grilled cheese made the tuna salad really warm and a little off putting. I’ll make again, but open faced.

Awesome, though not sure why you'd bother softening and spreading the butter when you could more easily melt it in the pan and let the bread soak it up. But whatevs. One mod/tip: Combine all the tuna salad ingredients *except* the tuna before adding it at the end. Way easier to get everything well-distributed that way.

The type of tuna will impact the texture, so adjust wet ingredients accordingly. I find albacore is more dry than a chunk light which absorbed less of the mayo mixture.

Our standard is to use 1/2 an English muffin and finish by melting cheddar under our toaster oven broiler. Finish with smoked paprika.

Good, but 3 cans of tuna made more tuna salad than needed for 4 sandwiches

Delicious as-is, but easy to adapt. For instance, canned pink salmon is just as good, maybe better, than tuna; and red wine vinegar makes a more flavorful substitution for lemon juice. Also consider a little tart hot sauce - not to make it spicy per we, just to give it a little something as an undertone. We made a few different combinations, and the family loved them.

Delicious! And I also used mayo on the bread to grill. Might add some capers next time and some avocado. Yum!

Not sure why a recipe is needed. But this is mostly how I've always made tuna-melts. Thus, two thumbs up.

Adding a few slices of jalapeño to the sandwich really makes it pop!

I’ve made this before, today I had no tuna but I did have a fresh 6oz salmon filet so I used that. I also shredded some Monterey Jack and tossed it with some chopped KimChi. Best grilled tuna melt in the tristate area.

I ate these in high school around 1968, at a little diner across the street from my school. I have made a version of this for years and kids loved them when they were small.

Whenever we want a grilled cheese sandwich or a tuna melt, we assemble the sandwich and put it in our old Forman grill. We never used the grill for much but it makes fabulous grilled sandwiches which is why we keep it around. The bread comes out perfectly crispy and the cheese is very melty. We don't butter/oil the grill or the bread.

Sam Sifton notes that "Lidey makes the melts with buttered exteriors. I add a swipe of mayonnaise for extra browning and a fantastic crunch."

No dill thank you. It overwhelms the taste of a good tuna melt. . Celery, red onion minced, mayo is my take with Swiss or gruyere. Tomato slices in between is a must! Then there are those days when potato chips go on over the tuna salad as well. Not an epicurean delight yet the taste is simply divine.

Adding a little garlic and Italian seasoning/oregano to your butter- basically making your bread into garlic bread -makes this soooo so good

This is excellent. I subbed bread and butter pickles and honey mustard since that’s what I had, it was wonderful!

The fresh dill, freshly chopped pickle, higher quality canned tuna, and fresh bread (from my bread machine), took this to the next level. I will never make a tuna melt any other way.

The guy who said spread horseradish on the bread, you got it right.

Add the horseradish. Takes it to the next level. Thanks to the person who suggested it.

Our mom made tuna melts regularly , open face English muffin and run under broiler instead of pan grilled. It always included mayo, finely chopped green bell pepper and a bit of onion. I will try a few of these new suggestions. Always tuna packed in olive oil for me.

Love this recipe and the suggests in the comments (like tomato, horseradish, etc) will add that good cheddar doesn’t melt easily and I use some sharp Crowley Cheese which is this super melty all natural cheese from VT that melts like fake cheese. You’ll thank me!

Like JKH, I prefer open-faced tuna melts, with a slice of cheese or a generous topping of grated cheese. But I like them on a lightly toasted English muffin. What a homemade tuna melt has over a tuna melt from a diner is that you can have it your way - bread, tuna salad, cheese, additional ingredients, cooking method - just as you like them!