On a budget: 7 recipes you can make with canned tuna

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: the tastiest recipes with canned tuna.

Stretching your last money just before your salary is deposited can be a challenge. You still want to eat well. Fortunately, a can of tuna can get you quite far.

If you really have no money to spare, you can go for the cheapest option, but our favorite is the tuna from Fish Tales. It's a euro more expensive, but it doesn't make much difference for a whole meal for two people.

Indonesian
FavorFlavs Renée's favorite dish: fry 2 finely chopped shallots, 1-2 cloves of finely chopped garlic, 1 red chili, and some trassi in a wok. Add 1-2 tomatoes (cut into small cubes) and a little tomato paste and gula djawa (palm sugar) and fry for a bit longer. Add canned tuna and fry until crispy, season with pepper and salt and possibly sambal.

This is the most basic version of the dish; if you have some money left or happen to have green beans or haricots verts at home, add them together with the shallot and garlic in the wok. Green beans are too thick; you would need to blanch them first, but you can also add snap beans raw to the pan. Serve with rice and (pickled) cucumber.

Salad Niçoise
You might think of a Salad Niçoise as a bland bite in a mediocre restaurant, but if you make it right, it's really a delicious meal. Because it contains potatoes, it's much more filling than your average salad. The anchovies and olives provide a pronounced and salty flavor. The correct preparation method for a Salad Niçoise is a contentious topic. The discussions have never stopped the residents of Nice from making this salad just the way it should be. How? This is how you make a Salad Niçoise like they do in Nice.

Tuna melt
Having bread for dinner every now and then is perfectly fine, especially if it's a mega filling tuna melt. The base is bread, tuna, mayonnaise, and cheese, but you can go as wild as you want. For the tuna salad, mayonnaise and tuna are enough, but you can also add a shallot, celery, or a squeeze of lemon juice. And of course, pepper and salt.

Do you have any tomatoes or jalapeños at home? They can also go nicely on your sandwich. I find it the tastiest to fry my tuna melt like a panini, but you can also layer two slices of bread and grill them in the oven until the cheese bubbles. It's just a matter of what you like. With these top tips, you make a top tuna melt.

Soup
A hearty soup with cannellini beans (which also cost next to nothing), kale, and canned tuna. Make a big pot of this, and you can feed a whole family for a few euros.

Bean salad
If you have an extra can of beans at home, make the Italian dish fagioli con tonno e cipolla. Sounds very chic, but it's nothing more than beans, tuna, and onion. Mix with some olive oil, pepper, and salt, and some parsley if your budget allows for a bunch. Serve with bread, and you have the meal of the poor.

Pasta with tuna
If you're a bit lucky, you only need to get arugula for this pasta, and the rest is in your pantry. Extra cheap then. More than some lemon, garlic, and chili flakes, you don't need.

Pastries
Crispy fried dough filled with tuna. Mmmm, sometimes nothing beats a good pastry. If you eat enough of these snacks, you'll have a full meal in no time. This recipe makes 25 delicious Antillean pastries, but be careful not to eat them all at once.