I don’t know about the rest of the world but when the groceries start getting low, I resort to a number of different favorite sandwiches for dinner. And, if you know me, you know I’m not talking about fancy mustard and special bread sandwiches. Being more of a “wow, I have a packet of mustard in my fridge,” kinda girl, the sandwiches I’m talking about are easy and cheap.
Ingredients vary, but here are the Top 5 Easy Cheap Sandwiches (in case you’re looking for dinner ideas). ALL require bread, we use simple and plain wheat, if you happen to have fancy herby or seedy bread, lucky you.
1. Toasted PB&J
Of course the bread has to be toasted, if you need directions on that part we might be in trouble. PB&J is always a good go-to sandwich, but toasting the bread makes it better, IMHO.
Other variations: PB&Honey, PB&Banana, PB&Marshmallow aka Fluffernutter.
2. Fried Egg and Mayo
Fry an egg or two and throw it on toasted bread slathered with Mayo. Done. Some people like adding cheese, I don’t.
3. Chicken Salad
This sandwich may be the most complicated of the easy and cheap sandwiches, but come on, it basically involves canned chicken. Try this simple and speedy chicken salad recipe that I posted a while back. One of the great things about chicken salad is you can whip up a bowl of it and eat sandwiches the rest of the week.
4. Tuna Salad
My daughter loves tuna with mayo. That’s it. I like adding lots of onions. We’ve also made tuna melts with cheese toasted in the oven. Still, simplicity wins and she prefers plain old tuna with mayo, nothing else. If you want to try something different, grab a packet or two of the new flavored tunas (ie garlic herb tuna, sweet and spicy tuna), and add mayo and the rest of your regular tuna ingredients. Yummy…
Grilled Ham and Cheese
The ham can be replaced with any kind of lunchmeat in the fridge, although I don’t think I’ve tried to grill bologna with cheese. I have, however, fried bologna and let me tell you, if you absolutely have to eat bologna (baloney as it should be spelled) fry it and season it. Sounds complicated and ridiculous but there aren’t too many things that can’t be made better by frying.
Most people are of course familiar with grilled cheese, I’m just saying to take it a step further and throw on some meat. Again, if you’re not sure how to make a grilled cheese sandwich, let me know.
It’s a good idea to make things to go with the sandwiches, like soup if you’re working on anything larger than a snack (toasted PB&____ is a late night snack for me sometimes.)
I’d like to know if anyone else has any simple sandwich ideas. Please don’t suggest special occasion sandwiches–you know, the ones with the fancy stuff that you only make when you have company. Those aren’t simple or cheap. Still, gimme your easy sandwich ideas…can you tell what we’re having tonight?