I Made Kamala Harris' Easy, Cheesy Tuna Melt and It's Changed My Summertime Lunch Routine
Before Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for the 2024 Presidential Election, she was a US senator who in her free time, was showing off her *impressive* cooking skills on social media. In 2020, she was coping with the pandemic in her kitchen and live-streaming her sessions so everyone could join in on the fun. A little digging on her official YouTube page reveals a "Cooking with Kamala" subsection, where she cooks with public figures including chef José Andrés, Top Chef's Tom Colicchio and actress Mindy Kaling.
Related: Kamala Harris' Coconut Tree Meme, Explained
In an Instagram Live video with fellow Senator Mark Warner, she makes one of her faves: a classic tuna melt. As a fellow All-American girl boss who loves to cook, I wanted to give it a shot, so I grabbed the ingredients, cranked on the Beyoncé albums and got to work.
Get the recipe: Kamala Harris' Tuna Melt
Ingredients for Kamala Harris' Tuna Melt
For this tuna melt sandwich, you need canned tuna, celery, sliced red onion (optional; Kamala skips the onion on hers but adds it to her husband Doug's), mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, chopped fresh parsley, lemon juice, sliced whole wheat bread, sliced cheddar cheese, butter and salt and pepper to taste.
Related: I Tried Adam Sandler's Famous 'World's Greatest Sandwich
How to Make Kamala Harris' Tuna Melt
Begin by dicing your celery and red onion. Add the diced vegetables to a bowl with the drained tuna. Mix until the tuna is broken down into smaller chunks. Mix in mayo (Kamala says Miracle Whip or Hellmann's is fine, but she used Whole Foods brand in her video), mustard, parsley and lemon juice and season to taste with salt and pepper. Heat a skillet with butter and spread a bit more mayo on the outside of your bread slices. Add the bread slices to the skillet, mayo side down, then spoon your tuna salad on top of one slice and your cheddar on the other before putting the cheese-topped bread on top of the tuna once the cheddar starts to melt. Cook until the bread is gold brown, then cut in half.
Related: The Chef-Approved Way to Make Tuna Salad Sandwiches 10x Better
What I Thought of Kamala Harris' Tuna Melt
I'm not the biggest fan of tuna nor do I really love mayo so it took everything in me to venture into this recipe test. Plus, a tuna melt sounded so retro, like something my grandmother would have ordered at the corner diner in the 60s, and not a tasty summer sandwich for eating in the Year 2024. I can admit when I'm wrong, though, and I was wrong about this one. Kamala Harris is onto something here.
I chopped, diced and whipped this up in about 10 minutes and was kind of impressed with the end result. It was a proper tuna melt, a cross between a tuna sandwich and a grilled cheese, with crispy bits of tuna that had fallen out of the sandwich and into the hot pan (the best!) mixed with the red onion and fresh celery, tangy Dijon, melty sharp cheddar and, of course, the dash of lemon to brighten it all up. I took one bite, then two, then three. Dare I say I would make this again? Because I would.
Related: The Chef-Approved Way to Make Tuna Salad Sandwiches 10x Better
Tips for Making Kamala Harris' Tuna Melt
Use a toaster or a skillet. If you don't want a tuna melt, Kamala says you can simply toast your bread and make a cold tuna sandwich. It'll be just as good and faster, too.
Up Next: Olympic Rugby Player Ilona Maher’s Method for Perfect Buttered Toast
