Salmon Cucumber Sandwich - Making food with toddler

This Salmon Cucumber Sandwich involves an easy no-cook recipe that lets toddler slice and mix ingredients for a yummy sandwich with omega 3 and probiotics. It is a cold sandwich, perfect for the hot weather we are having lately. ;)

Little P has been asking to make food with me again in the kitchen, but truthfully speaking I’m the type who needs to do kitchenwork in peace for my own safety. Because I am that person who will end up with a knife cut on the palm on her hand needing stitches while making something as innouous as avacado toast. #truestory

So simple recipes that are easy for toddler and a distracted mom to execute together are very important when we attempt this aspect of Montessori practical life work together.

Salmon Cucumber Sandwich - making food with toddler — **Salmon Cucumber Tea Sandwich**es
I didn’t bother removing the bread crusts because they are perfectly good and edible.
#SayNOtoFoodWaste

This Salmon Cucumber Sandwich is something we attempted today for lunch and likely a recipe we will continue to go back to time and again. Simply because the ingredients that go into it are staple ingredients that we stock at home – canned salmon, cucumber, Greek yogurt, mayonnaise, baby spinach, butter and bread.

The rest is just putting it together.

The original recipe I’m referencing when carrying out this activity is this Salmon Cucumber Sandwiches recipe on The Spruce Eats. So you can check out the details there if you are interested.

Now let’s get started!

Putting together a Salmon Cucumber Sandwich with Toddler

Step 1: Preparing the sandwich bread

First, each of us cut our slice of bread into half and then into quarters. Remember also to take out a small pat of butter out of the refridgerator to soften first so it’s easy to butter up your bread later!

Each of us cut our slice of bread into half and then into quarters. - Salmon Cucumber Sandwich - Making food with toddler — **Cut into halves, cut into quarters. Bread slicing language and math!**
3.5 year old Little P cuts slanted lines into his slice of bread rather than get proper squares like this picture and that’s ok too.

Step 2: Prepping the salmon cucumber spread

Next we use our knives to slice and chop up our cucumbers.

Little P cuts the cucumber with this nylon knife out of a set of 4.

Little P can only manage cucumber chunks but I sliced and diced enough cucumber thin bits for both of us (small enough not to be a choking risk.)

This is the set of plastic knives that Little P uses in the kitchen.

Read reviews and buy on Amazon.

And then it’s time to make our salmon and cucumber spread!!

The ingredients that go into out salmon and cucumber spread include:
canned salmon, cucumber, Greek yogurt and mayonnaise. — The ingredients that go into out salmon and cucumber spread include:
6oz canned salmon,
1/2 cup cucumber,
2 tablespoons yogurt
2 tablespoons mayonnaise.

Little P likes raw cucumber sticks and slices. But he reminded me that he didn’t like salmon when he saw me open up a can.

This is the canned wild-caught salmon, boneless, no salt added that we stocked in our pantry.

Buy a dozen on Amazon or fewer cans on iHerb.
(If you click a link to Amazon/iherb and buy something, I get a tiny commission. It doesn’t increase your cost on these online stores but it does help you give me a tiny “tip” so to speak, which eventually accumulates enough to treat me to a coffee or two or store credits in the case of iherb. :P)

I appreciated that he calmly watched as I drained and mashed up the canned salmon into flakes, before tossing the lot into the same bowl as the diced cucumber. He offered to help me mix them up. So I handed him the fork.

I readied 2 tablespoons of Greek yogurt (because that’s what we had at home) and tossed that in. Mom approved because probiotics and kid approved because he likes it. (You can read about how we choose our yogurt here. I originally wrote it for dogs but the concepts apply for humans too.)

And then I squeezed out less than 2 tablespooons of mayonnaise. Little P’s eyes shone and he wiggled in delight.

This is the mayonnaise we had at home so we just used it.

I guess by now he had become more amenable to eating a salmon sandwich. Haha.

Mix, mix, mix, mix, mix. And we are done with our salmon cucumber spread!

The spread for our salmon cucumber sandwiches! - Flaked salmon , cucumber cubes, Greek yogurt and mayonnaise. — The spread for our salmon cucumber sandwiches! – Flaked salmon , cucumber cubes, Greek yogurt and mayonnaise.

It’s very doable if you already have the ingredients in your pantry or fridge!

We made some modifications to the original recipe of course, to simplify things. Such as substituting lettuce leaves with baby spinach leaves because that’s what we had at home. What’s more important to me is exposing Little P to the idea of incorporating vegetables in the food prep rather than the specific vegetable required by the recipe.

So yah, use whatever staple you have in your kitchen that makes sense without making things more complicated for yourself.

I also simply did not include those none-key (at least to me :P ) ingredients that I didn’t have readily on hand. Haha. So yah, we didn’t use the dill, lemon juice and green onion. Although I think I will try including lemon juice and green onion next time to see the difference.

A note from the future! 
A week or two later I tried this recipe including lemon juice and future me now says: Lemon juice made the spread too watery for my liking. And there was not much difference in the taste so, I would continue to omit this in future.

Step 3: Putting the salmon cucumber sandwich together

I unfortunately did not take out the butter early enough so Little P had to patiently wait for little tiny cubes of butter soften on his bread. :P

Waiting for butter to soften and become more spreadable. - Salmon Cucumber Sandwich - Making food with toddler — “Why does butter soften and melt?” asks Little P
“Why does it take so long? (为什么这么久？)”

While we waited, we washed our yellowing baby spinach leaves. It was a good opportunity to explain to him how green leaves are fresher than yellowing leaves. Haha. Oops.

We each buttered our bread. Laid our spinach leaves on the buttered bread. Spooned the salmon spread onto our leaves and bread. Laid the other buttered slice with leaf on top and walah!!

Putting our little salmon cucumber sandwiches together.
Food prep pictures taken separately which is why I have green baby spinach this time. :P — **Putting our little salmon cucumber sandwiches together.**
Food prep pictures taken separately which is why I have green baby spinach this time. :P

The result:

Little P enjoying his self-made salmon cucumber sandwiches, held together with star food picks. Because food picks are fun to eat with today.

Salmon Cucumber Sandwich - making food with toddler — Little P enjoying his self-made salmon cucumber sandwiches, held together with food picks topped with stars. Because food picks are fun to eat with today.

The big chunks of cucumber that Little P helped cut were served separately.
We ate them with hummus. Yummy!

Salmon Cucumber Sandwich - making food with toddler — The big chunks of cucumber that Little P helped cut were served separately.
We ate them with hummus. Yummy!

Of course Little P’s sandwiches were not picture perfect. What mattered was he enjoyed the process of asking questions about his food while he was helping to make it. And that he enjoyed eating it afterwards. ;)