A tuna fish sandwich, a tuna salad sandwich, or tuna sandwich, is a type of sandwich usually made with tuna salad and includes ingredients such as mayonnaise and celery. Other common variations include the tuna boat and tuna melt.
The sandwich has been called "the mainstay of almost everyone's [American] childhood"[1] and "the staple of the snatched office lunch for a generation."[2] In the United States, 52% of canned tuna is used for sandwiches.[3]
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A tuna fish sandwich is usually made with canned tuna mixed with mayonnaise and other ingredients such as chopped celery, hard-boiled egg, pickle, onion, or black olives. Other recipes may use olive oil, salad cream, mustard, or yogurt instead of mayonnaise.
A tuna melt has melted cheese on top of the tuna or on a tomato slice and is served on toasted bread. A tuna boat is a tuna sandwich served in a hot dog bun.
Tuna is a relatively high protein food and it is very high in Omega-3 fatty acids. A sandwich made from 100 grams of tuna and two slices of toasted white bread has approximately 287 calories, 96 calories of which are from fat. It also has 20g of protein and 27 grams of carbohydrates.[4][5][6]
According to the StarKist company,
The nutritional content of albacore may vary naturally from catch to catch. In particular, the fat and calorie content will differ depending on the region or depth where the fish are caught. Albacore tuna that swim close to the water surface can be higher in fat than tuna caught in deep ocean waters - but they're also lower in mercury content and higher in Omega-3 content. Because availability of albacore tuna may vary from season to season, we use two different labels to accurately show the fat and calorie content of the product contents.[7]
A larger, commercially-prepared tuna fish sandwich has more calories than noted above, based on its serving size. A 6-inch Subway tuna sub of 250 grams has 530 calories, 280 of those from fat, about a gram of sodium, and 22 grams of protein.[8]