Finally Summer arrived! I am happy about it, but since I am terrible with heat, I have not been very inspired when it comes to food. Luckily I have some nice standby dishes that will perk up any easy meal, go great as side dishes with a barbecue or just make you feel comfortable.
One of my favourite sandwich fillings is egg salad. It is very easy, healthy and satisfying. This weekend I made the extremely easy version.
Easy Egg Salad
Ingredients
- 4 hardboiled eggs
- 5 tbsp of mayonaise (I use yoghurt mayonaise, if you don’t have that, add 2 tbsp of low fat yoghurt to 3 tbsp of mayonaise)
- 2 tsp of curry powder (or to taste, depending on the spiciness of your curry powder)
- 1 tsp of paprika powder
- 1 pinch of onion powder
- 1 pinch of cayenne pepper for a kick
- freshly ground black pepper
- ground salt to taste
- lots of chopped chives
Boiling the eggs
I would say: boil the eggs the way you usually boil them. Personally I have 2 methods, one before my Perfect Egg Timer and one since. At first I boiled my eggs the way I learned from my mother: bring the water to the boil, carefully put in the eggs and let them boil for 8 minutes. I let them boil for 5 minutes for still slightly runny eggs – not recommended for this recipe, but just to be complete. Run cold water over them (in the Netherlands we call that “scaring the eggs :-)) and let them cool down before peeling them.
The method with the Perfect Egg Timer is: fill a pan with water, put in your eggs and the Perfect Egg Timer and wait until the egg-times says they are in between medium and hard. Take the eggs out of the pan, scare your eggs and let them cool down.
Method
1. Peel your eggs and cut them into cubes, do not mash them finely – we like to have some texture. Put the cubed eggs aside in a bow.
2. In another bowl mix the 3 tbsp of mayonnaise with 2 tbsp of low fat yoghurt.
3. Add the curry powder, paprika powder, onion powder, salt en pepper and mix well.
4. Sprinkle in the chives and give it all a good stir.
5. Add your cubed eggs and mix carefully. Taste to adjust the seasoning.
- You can of course build upon this recipe. I usually also add chopped cherry tomatoes and chopped spring onions, you could add finely diced cucumber or really anything else you like. You can also vary with the seasoning, add some dill or celery.
For extra nice sandwiches I also fried a chicken breast with my Norwegian shish kebab spice mix, which has coriander, paprika, chilli, cinnamon, cumin and garlic. Very nice with some salad and a tiny bit of Thai Sriracha sauce.
Another one of my easy favourites is tuna salad. This, again, is the very easy version. Feel free to build upon it and add whatever you like!
Easy Tuna Salad
Ingredients
1 tin of tuna (I usually use tuna in water, but you could use the one in oil)
2,5 tbsp of yoghurt mayonnaise (or 1tbsp of low fat yoghurt mixed with 1,5 tbsp of mayonnaise)
a squeeze of lemon juice
1 small tbsp of ketchup
1 onion, chopped
freshly ground black pepper
some saltMethod
1. Drain the tuna and squeeze a little lemon juice on top.
2. Mix the yoghurt mayonnaise, the ketchup, the freshly ground pepper, a pinch of salt and the chopped onions. Combine this with the drained tuna
- To spike this up, add some Italian herbs and 2 sun dried tomatoes, soaked in boiling water for 3 minutes and finely sliced. In the Netherlands they actually have ready-made packets of tuna mixed with Italian herbs and sun dried tomatoes, you could use those and mix them with the onion, ketchup and mayo. You can also replace the “normal onion” with a spring onion and add some pickled capers for a zesty tang.
Enjoy!
Wild strawberries 