I just read that they are very good for you and a source of high protein. My Doc wants me to keep a diet rich in protein for some specific health reasons.
Can you describe the taste? How costly are they?
They have a rich, almost earthy, fishy taste. Tinned filleted ones (which are actually very good) are inexpensive - in fact they are a typical skint student meal when had on toast. The price of fresh ones is probably location dependant.
In tins, very cheap. Around a dollar for as many as you’d want to eat at a sitting. Fresh, they are cheaper than most fish - again, at least here. If you live somewhere with lots of Sicilians that might not hold.
They are an oily fish. They are quite meaty and fairly strongly flavoured. They’re great on toast with a squeeze of lemon. IMHO, much better than tinned tuna (except that poisonously expensive Italian type). Often the tinned ones come in flavours - I’m got ones in lime and pepper, hot chilli, olive oil and tomato sauce in the pantry. Fresh, I like to eat them raw on toast, marinated in olive oil, lemon juice (which “cooks” them) and herbs. You could also gut them and throw them on the barbie with a little butter and basil. Or toss them through spaghetti with pine nuts, raisins and herbs.
When prepared fresh, some people are put off by the multitude of tiny bones - they’re usually soft - more like little hairs than bones - and they can just be eaten, but they’re not to everyone’s taste and they’re difficult to separate out.
In tins, they are usually cooked to the point of being crumbly and undetectable.
If it turns out that you like Sardines, you might also like to try pilchards - same sort of thing, only a bit fatter.
Not that you asked, but I find that anchovies have a better protein to fat ratio and a slightly better taste than sardines. Have you considered anchovy paste? It can be a gentle introduction to the world of small, strong-tasting oily fish in general. Get a tube of Amore paste and toss it into some pasta with kalamata olives, a bit of garlic cooked up in olive oil, and grated locatelli, then drizzle with some dry white and you’ve got one of my favorite bachelor dinners. If you like the paste buy a tin and start mincing them up instead, soon you’ll be eating the little bastards whole.
Since the OP lives in Pennsylvania, I don’t think we’re talking about fresh sardines or pilchards here. 
Canned sardines (in those distinctive long flat “sardine tins”) are very good, and come in a variety of flavors, tomato sauce and mustard sauce being the ones most commonly found at American grocery stores. They taste like, well, “sardines”, they are solid hunks of fish-meat, the tiny steamed bones are unnoticeable, and actually I, who have a phobia about fish bones, have always been able to eat sardines. You can put them on toast, as mentioned, or just put them on a plate and eat them.
Canned salmon is also good if you’re looking to increase your protein intake in a fishy manner. And you don’t have to worry about mercury like with tuna.
ETA: in the U.S., canned fish of all species tends to be fairly expensive, at least compared with other animal protein sources like chicken and turkey. Sardines are not cheap. If price is an issue, you’d want to go with chicken and turkey to increase your animal protein intake.
There are sardines, then there are sardines. There seem to be quite a few different types and sizes of fish under that name.
All the ones I’ve seen in the states are canned. Some cans have part of a fish. Some have 3-4 fish. Some have about 10. The ones I like have maybe 15+ fish. These are the itty-bitty ones that are packed closely together like, well, sardines. I think “crosspacked” on the label indicates the small fish that are no longer than the width (as opposed to the length) of the can. “Two layer” indicates even smaller fish, maybe 20+ of them, and are my favorite, though they’re hard to find. The price goes up as the size of fish goes down. I recall it’s about $3-4 a can for the better ones.
The best sardines are only packed in sild oil or olive oil. Mustard sauce and tomato sauce are signs to me of bigger fish I won’t like as well (the same brand might also have olive oil, but the fish are still too big). For my taste, putting any fish in those sauces is a travesty. With the good sardines, the flavor (smoky, salty, oily) gets more delicate - and more enjoyable - as the fish get smaller.
Mmmmm…sardines. They are kind of fishy but in a succulent way. I love them packed in mustard and eaten with soda crackers. YMMV but I also like them dipped in a cocktail sauce or even a marinara. On buttered toast they make a great lunch.
I’ve never eaten one but I give them to my dogs and they LOVE them, FWIW. I’ll try one and report back (but be warned, I like almost everything, anchovies included, so my opinion won’t mean much if you are a selective eater).
This is a great idea - anchovies are a fantastic ingredient, as well as being a food in their own right.
Alternatively, you could introduce yourself to small oily fish from the other direction - by starting with large oily fish. Baked mackerel - buy the biggest, fattest one you can find, get the fishmonger to clean it (and take off the head and fins if that bothers you), stuff the cavity with a big bunch of rosemary and a chunk of butter and wrap the whole lot in foil - bake it in a hot oven for half an hour or so and serve it flaked onto thickly-sliced granary bread. Wonderful!
Here (Canada) I don’t buy Sardines until they get near or under 80 cents. Herring (adult Sardines*) gets to that price more frequently than Sardines. I’ve never noticed any benefit from buying name brand Sardines for the plain fish (NN brand is usually <70 cents), but the Brunsuik flavoured Sardines/Herring are awesome. I boil the tin in a little pot, and eat them on toast with butter. The mustard and smoked flavours are the best.
*Sardine is a catchall term for small fish
Salt and fish oil. Good on pizza.
What happened to the california sardines? i visited Monterey a few years ago-and read Steinbeck’s classic “cannery row”-sardines were a big business there once-then they just vanished-why?
yucky, nasty, fishy, oily and vomit inducing.
As you might be able to tell, I detest little dead fish with the burning passion of a million suns going supernova.
My protein of choice is egg white. Well, I prefer the whole egg, but if you are concerned about cholesterol use just the whites.
Omelettes, quiches, custards [sweet and savory] deviled eggs, hard boiled eggs, coddled eggs in a nest of rice florentine, coddled egg in a nest of black beans and salsa, egg salad. There must be a hundred ways to have eggs…
If it must be canned, and fish, how about tuna? per 6oz can it is on the order of 40 g protein…
Here Knock yourself out, a list of high protein foods. Enjoy! 
Off to our forum for food and drink.
Moved from IMHO to CS.
One of the unexplainable favorites from my childhood was sardines mashed with lots of yellow mustard and spread on crackers. I learned it from Mom–along with pickles on my grilled chese. I still eat it, but it’s not the best choice to bring to the office.
They’re cheap and also a good source of calcium and fish oils, but there are lots of other protein sources. Most Americans get more than they really need due to the amount of meat they eat. Lean meat, fish and shellfish of any kind, lowfat dairy, beans, nuts, eggs–all good sources of protein
Okay, everybody else has covered the bases so let’s introduce some sardine trivia…
Do you know why sardines are “packed like sardines?”
Years ago accroding to Ripley’s Believe it or Not it was because the oil they’re packed in is more expensive than the fish.
I love smelt from the Pacific Northwest. Mmm, smelt. We used to catch them during their migration by dipping a line with multiple bare fishhooks in the water and waiting for enough of them to latch on, so numerous were they.
Tried some last night.
The kind I have are packed in water, the 3.75 oz. tins that have 3-4 fish them.
I liked them - they have a nice meaty texture and a pleasant mild flavor. You definitely know you are eating fish, but the actual flavor is not very ‘fishy’ at all.
I think they’d do nicely in any recipe that calls for canned tuna. The flavor was much closer to tuna than anchovies - anchovies are very strongly flavored and quite salty. The sardines were not. I’m also thinking that they’d do well in any pasta dish that called for seafood or a seafood salad. I can see why there are tomato sauce and mustard varieties - both of those flavors would complement them nicely.
So two thumbs up from me on the sardines.
Sardines seem to be one of those foods you either love or find disgusting. Buy yourself just one tin of plain sardines and give it a try before you invest too much into them.
I’ve eaten them since I was a kid. Mom would make sandwiches for us, white bread, mayo, sardines and a little letuce for crunch. I still love them that way. Also great on crackers. I could never make myself eat the spine though, mom always took them out for me when I was a kid. I split them and pull out the spine but I don’t mind the tiny bones. I think they would do fine in anything you would do with tuna. I still make my sandwiches the way I described, I don’t mash up the sardines. I also like them as a protein source on a salad. I haven’t gotten too adventurous with them, I’ve only tried the flavored kinds a couple times.
Never, ever eat sardines if you feel a little nauseaus before you eat.