unsung heroes of food - sardines 🐟

for the admirers, but especially the haters, of stinky fish

So to start, we are all here because we all want to feed ourselves and our families with food that nourishes. Sometimes that means creating a meal that takes time and lots of love goes into it. But sometimes — most times? — that needs to come together fast. To the rescue are another of my unsung heroes of food: sardines 🐟

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As is the pattern thus far with my ‘unsung heroes of food’ series (apparently), I only started eating them when I was pregnant with my son, mainly because of this wonderful book Real Food for Pregnancy by Lily Nichols. I needed something lower in mercury that wouldn’t break the bank. (Salmon, I love you dearly, but you are not sustainable for the average budget.)

The obsession started with me mixing a tin of sardines with a riff on homemade Caesar dressing (omitting the raw egg yolk) and tossing it with a head of romaine lettuce. The creamy, tangy dressing helped to disguise the extreme fishiness of the sardines, and the crunchy, watery leaves of the romaine also helped to dilute the intensity. This salad makes for a VERY EASY DINNER, especially when you are pregnant and have NO FREAKING ENERGY. 

Then I was tasked with feeding these glorious little fishies to my infant son. (Tips and tricks found below with the recipes.) I started with making my Sardine Caesar mixture and spreading it thinly on toast bites. It would be assembled very neat and tidy, only to be eaten separately, fish and then toast 🤷🏻‍♀️ Total baby move lol. 

But then I got tired of making the dressing all the time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s easy and delicious, but as he got older and more mobile, I needed something even easier and faster. I started mixing them into my chicken salads:

THE 5 LIVES OF A ROAST CHICKEN

It’s an easy way to add even more protein to it when you have a little less chicken meat than you thought, but it’s also time consuming. So one day I decided to just brave it and do a pure sardine mixture, and boy did I stumble upon greatness. I started calling it sardine stuff because the add-ins change with the seasons and the whole house loves it, including the 🐈‍⬛🐈 

Sardines are a true nutritional superhero. High in protein and good fats, they are also a sort of one-stop shop for omega-3 fatty acids, calcium, iron, vitamin B12, vitamins D and E. Read more here. Incredible brain food. These tinned fish are also quite affordable and make a perfect pantry protein. They average about $4 per tin, but I’ve seen them as low as $10.99 for 6 at Costco, that’s a little under $2 per tin! For a 4.4oz tin, you’re getting between 18-22g protein. To me, that alone is worth learning to make these things more palatable…if you’re hesitant about them, that is. Some brands are more potent than others, so it’s up to you to find the sardines of your dreams.

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Now, I’m sure most of you stopped at sardine stuff and thought, “on what planet does a Midwestern toddler eat sardines willingly?” Hear me out.

It makes a great “toddler char*cute*erie dinner” — break crackers in half, spread a clump on one half of the cracker halves, add cut vegetables with a cup of yogurt dip, a little baby kosher dill pickle, some dried apricots cut appropriately for their age, and you have a delicious no-heat meal ready in 10 minutes or less 💁🏻‍♀️🪄😘

Bonus pro tip: sit on a blanket on the floor for a special picnic dinner, they freaking love it. Eating in different spaces/venues or having a change of scenery can help out during trying times at the dinner table.

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To add even more nutritional benefits to these recipes, I like to throw in a couple tablespoons of *sauerkraut* - for the probiotics and the zip on the tongue 😛 I like the Bubbie’s brand. Cue the recipes.

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