Ready for the Christmas Holidays? Let’s start with the appetizers with this recipe of Christmas Trees with sandwich bread with tuna sauce and arugula! Perfect also for a quick aperitif with friends or family, they are prepared in a few minutes and require no cooking!
We will prepare the tuna sauce with ricotta for added consistency, we will create Christmas Tree Sandwiches with the cookie cutters and finally create the magic by assembling this appetizer. The final touch is the cheese star also made with the smallest cutter.
Don’t be fooled by the Tree shape because these Sandwich Christmas Trees are made with 4 star-shaped cutters of different sizes. If you want to purchase them, I’ll leave the link here. The cutters I suggested for purchase are stainless steel which I think is perfect, they are easy to wash and stainless steel certainly lasts longer than the plastic ones you see in the video recipe below.
Are you ready to start? Just a few steps and the recipe is served! I also made a video recipe with step-by-step instructions to show you all the steps of this preparation. I love Christmas and every year I try to find new recipes to share with you, but I have to admit that I realized simplicity often pays off. These Stuffed Sandwich Trees are simple to make and at the same time super cute, an everlasting symbol of Christmas like the Tree to bring to the table.
Below, I also leave you some other recipes you can prepare during the holiday season, from sweet recipes to savoury recipes. We could start with the Savoury Christmas Trees, also made with sandwich bread, from last year. Or choose the Christmas Tree Savory Pie with speck, cherry tomatoes, and olives that I made a few days ago as a new Christmas recipe for this year.
You will also find Christmas desserts like the Christmas Tree Cakes with rice flour, Christmas Cookies with butter-free shortcrust pastry and Cinnamon with video recipe. Finally, the most loved breakfast of last year: the Christmas French Toast made with Pandoro and berries.
Every link is clickable and will take you directly to the recipe you have chosen to read. Remember that I’ll be waiting for you every morning in the group and on the Facebook fan page of Le Ricette di Bea with the Recipe of the Day! An unmissable appointment to start the day together!
- Difficulty: Very Easy
- Cost: Very Cheap
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 20 Pieces
- Cooking methods: No Cooking
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Winter, Christmas
- Energy 92.58 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 12.12 (g) of which sugars 1.10 (g)
- Proteins 4.71 (g)
- Fat 3.15 (g) of which saturated 0.95 (g)of which unsaturated 0.51 (g)
- Fibers 0.79 (g)
- Sodium 222.46 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 42 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients to prepare Christmas Trees for appetizer or aperitif
- 10 slices sandwich bread (rectangular type, not square, please)
- 5 oz canned tuna in water
- 2 cups arugula
- 2 oz ricotta cheese
- 10 slices cheese (similar to galbanino)
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 pinch pepper
- 1 drizzle extra virgin olive oil
- to taste chives
- 1 teaspoon mustard
- 1 pinch curry
Don’t throw away the leftover sandwich bread from this recipe, I’ll reveal in the next few days what we can prepare with this bread. Get ready because it will be another quick and delicious appetizer or aperitif to enjoy!
Tools to prepare Christmas Trees with Sandwich Bread
- 1 Cutting Board
- 1 Cutter
- 1 Mixer
- 1 Teaspoon
- 2 Small Bowls
- 20 Toothpicks
- 1 Knife
If you want, I’ve left the links to purchase the cutters and the mixer to chop and mince quickly and easily many ingredients. With this mixer, we can prepare a perfect tuna sauce in a few minutes.
Steps of the Recipe Stuffed Sandwich Christmas Trees
Let’s start by arranging on the worktop all the ingredients needed for the preparation of the filled Christmas Tree sandwiches. So take the canned tuna, the ricotta, the arugula, the spices you have chosen to use, the slices of sandwich bread, the cheese as well as the mixer, the cutting board and knife and the toothpicks. In short, the more tools and ingredients you have at hand, the faster we’ll be in preparation.
We can proceed: take the mixer bowl or chopper and pour in the canned tuna, add the dose of ricotta, add the spices and salt. It’s your choice regarding the chives, pepper, and curry; I like them, but if you don’t, you can vary with parsley and paprika, for example.
Turn on the mixer and make a creamy tuna sauce puree. Of course, if you don’t have or don’t want to use ricotta, you can replace it with classic mayonnaise. It will make the sauce nicely creamy and won’t alter the taste of the tuna. Set aside the sauce we just prepared.
Now place the slices of sandwich bread on the cutting board and use the star-shaped cookie cutters to cut out the three parts that will make up the filled Christmas Trees. It should be said that there must always be three for each tree, of three different sizes, from the largest, which will be the base, to the medium for the middle, and the small as the top layer. Then we will keep the smallest star shape for the cheese.
I indicated that with this recipe you will obtain 20 Savory Sandwich Christmas Trees, of course, this will be possible if you are careful when cutting out the stars from the bread. If you leave too much space between one cutter and another, you won’t be able to reach this number. I recommend watching the video recipe before proceeding so that you understand well how to cut out the stars from the sandwich bread.
Place the stars of the same size close together so as not to make mistakes when making the Christmas Trees. We can then proceed.
With a teaspoon, we can place some tuna sauce on the largest star base. Don’t put too much, it will definitely come out when we assemble the trees. Place some arugula leaves, I tore them with my hands to make them softer and removed the hard part of the stem.
Place the medium-sized star on top of the sauce and continue with the same system. Take a teaspoon of sauce, then the arugula, and finally the last star. On this last base, we should not spread the sauce or place the arugula.
Take the cheese similar to galbanino and cut many slices, not too thick but not too thin either, as many as the Christmas Trees we made. Pierce the stars with the toothpicks and place them at the top and center of each tree. If you cannot understand this step, you can watch the video recipe found under the first photo.
The Sandwich Christmas Trees are finally ready to be served to our guests or family. They are a perfect appetizer or a delicious aperitif. Easy, quick, and no cooking required, these Christmas Trees with Sandwich Bread will win everyone over!
It only remains for me to wish you a good appetite and remind you that I await you every day here on my blog with many recipes like this one! I also give you a sneak peek of the next recipe since you are here on the blog interested in this recipe that can be served as an appetizer or aperitif. We will prepare a fragrant and delicious homemade Hugo Spritz together! So the aperitif will be truly complete and we will have prepared everything ourselves!
Tips and Variations:
I recommend not using cutters that are too small, you will struggle to cut out the stars to create the Christmas Trees with Sandwich Bread. Plus, you will have very little space to place the tuna sauce and arugula which are the main filling ingredients of this Christmas appetizer.
Obviously, with variations, a whole world opens up, you can choose any fillings that come to mind! Let your imagination run wild, open the fridge and discover how many different combinations you can already create with the ingredients you have available. You will certainly make some wonderful culinary discoveries this way. If that’s not enough, open the pantry, and even in this case I’m sure you will find ingredients you didn’t think could be useful for creating new flavors.
