Giada De Laurentiis' Open Faced Sandwiches Are Our New Fave Summer Lunch

Keeping lunch time interesting can be a struggle. It’s easy to get stuck in a rut where you eat the same sad, soggy sandwich every day, or rely on a basic salad to get you through the afternoon but find yourself ravenously hungry a mere hour later, and then manage to spend a week’s worth of spending money buying snacks at the grocery store on your way home. It doesn’t have to be this way! Giada De Laurentiis has an open-faced Sicilian tuna sandwich recipe that will solve all of your lunch time woes. It’s vibrantly flavorful, can be made ahead of time, and is loaded with nutritious ingredients that will keep you full until dinner.

First things first: yes, this is technically an open-faced sandwich, but if you need a little more oomph in your lunch, you can definitely add a second piece of English muffin on top. Oh, did we mention that instead of boring sandwich bread, this recipe calls for English muffins? It’s a simple swap that makes a big difference. Plain sandwich bread can get soggy in minutes, but a toasted English muffin stands up to a robust filling.

The tuna salad portion of the sandwich isn’t like what you might remember from childhood. There’s no gloppy mayo to weigh things down and drown out the flavor of the other ingredients. Instead, De Laurentiis uses a white bean and mascarpone spread that’s slathered on the English muffin to hold the sandwich together, and she says it makes a great veggie dip, too, so if you make a little extra you have the beginning of a tasty afternoon snack – just add carrot sticks.

The olive oil-packed tuna is drained, then tossed with celery, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, and parsley, with an olive oil-lemon vinaigrette used to dress the mixture.

Then everything is piled on the white bean and mascarpone-laden English muffin half, along with some spicy arugula.

You could easily make the tuna portion of the sandwich ahead of time, then assemble your sandwiches before eating. And if you’re low carb, you could scoop the tuna salad mixture into a crisp lettuce cup or halved bell pepper as your lunch – or just eat it right out of the bowl with a spoon. Heck, we might do that anyway – it’s just that good.

In search of summer recipes, too? Giada De Laurentiis has plenty:

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