Pepper Turkey Melt

Pepper Turkey Melt

homemade

B

Going back to the grilled-cheese-made-under-the-broiler method, I stacked black pepper-crusted, roasted turkey breast and pepper jack cheese with a little Grey Poupon on some healthy, whole-grain, multi-seeded bread and put the oven to work. Turned out crunchy, melty, a bit spicy, and quite flavorful. Thanks, broiler.

Tuna Melt Sickness

The Tuna Melt of Sickness

homemade

D+

I've made many questionable sandwiches in my time, and many of those unfortunate experiments have occurred during some sort of illness. Why? Because when I'm sick, I'm a huge baby, and while I may have good fresh food to eat in the house, I'm lazy and whiny and much more likely to throw a few ingredients between bread. Hence, this tuna melt, a sad byproduct of my annual week-long summer cold. Two tiles of generic multigrain bread were tossed into a pan with a little olive oil, flipped, layered with thick slices of Muenster cheese and a few forkfuls of Starkist Tuna Creations Sweet & Spicy flavor—I don't recall purchasing that fish envelope, for the record—and then plastered together and griddled 'til toasty. It actually doesn't sound that bad, but it was. Cheese didn't get melted enough. Tuna flavoring was a poor choice for sandwiching. Dryness was inescapable. But hey, on the plus side, I still can't really taste anything. I will survive.

Taco Sandwich

Taco Sandwich

homemade

B+

So I invented this. You've never made this before. No, it's not a torta. It's close, though. I used a traditional torta roll, a fluffier version of a bolillo, one with a really nice, soft chewiness to it. It's a pretty great roll, actually. I toasted it and melted slices of pepper jack cheese on both sides, then layered some ground beef with the traditional gringo taco flavorings. Then on top of the meat, I basically placed a tostada—not tortilla chips but a crunchy taco shell, snapped in half so it'd be flat, then coated with chunky red salsa, fresh cilantro and sour cream. Then, top bun, with top cheese. You bite it and simultaneously get the soft, meaty, spicy goodness of your favorite torta with the crunchy, zesty, cheesy sensation of a taco. Which is why I named it the taco sandwich, and I get to name it, because I invented it.

Ham and Cheese

Ham and Cheese

homemade

B

Go to a French bakery. Take home a baguette. Spread mustard on each side, throw some provolone on there and drop it under the broiler for a couple minutes. Add some Back Forest ham. Crunch it up. Toasty, salty, satisfying. Done deal.

Sandwich Sundays presents: Provolone Arugula Pizza Veggie Burger

Provolone Arugula Pizza Veggie Burger

homemade

A

Trader Joe's pizza-flavored veggie burger patties are legit. Or at least as legit as frozen soy protein discs could possibly get. They are packed with tomato, basil and mozzarella cheese, which actually do get that familiar pizza-ness across when you heat and eat. But go the extra mile, like we did for Sandwich Sundays. Grill them, and melt some thick-sliced provolone on top. Toss some peppery arugula in olive oil and lemon juice and red pepper flakes and pile it high on your patty, and mount everything on a toasty ciabatta bun. We took a solid idea and maximized its deliciousness. This was an easy victory.

Sandwich Sundays presents: The Raab and Sauce

The Raab and Sauce

homemade

B+

Looks sharp, eh? So we had a big spaghetti night and these were the leftovers: Rich, slightly spicy meat sauce made with ground turkey, mushrooms and whole black olives; and garlicky, bitter-delicious rapini. We made a quick jaunt over to Siena Deli to grab some slightly crusty, super-tasty hoagie rolls, layered it all together, tossed it in the oven for toasty fun, and sprinkled some finely grated parmigiano reggiano on top. It looked nice and neat for the picture, but believe this thing smushed and exploded and got messy fast. All good though. Nothing wrong with a messy sandwich, especially when you made it yourself and it tastes this good.

Breakfast Rye

Breakfast Rye

homemade

B-

The best breakfast sandwiches are the ones you make. Dark rye toast, soft scrambled eggs with a fuckin' Kraft single melted on top, and a layer of pre-cooked turkey sausages sliced in half so they they won't roll around. That's it, dude. That's all you need.

Sandwich Sundays Presents: The Prime Steak & Cheese

The Prime Steak & Cheese

homemade

B-

So the big error we made on this Sandwich Sundays creation was not putting enough cheese to make it Philly-ish, to get that melty, gooey excessiveness that makes all the difference. But the reason we didn't put too much havarti on this toasty creation is that we didn't want to overpower the meat, which is sliced and sizzled filet mignon left over from one of the greatest steakhouse meals of all time at Prime at Bellagio. While we were gorging ourselves on fancy deliciousness and watching the Bellagio fountains dance, we never considered we'd be making a sandwich out of this perfect steak the next day. Sometimes things go your way.

Hebrew National

Hebrew National

homemade

A-

Well hello there, summer. Toasted potato bun. Grilled Hebrew National jumbo beef frank. Beaver brand deli mustard with horseradish. Claussen kosher dill pickle spear. Here endeth the lesson.

Sandwich Sundays Presents: The Fake-Cago Dog

The Fake-Cago Dog

homemade

C+

It was just supposed to be hot dog-grilling day at bro's house, but then we saw the big dill pickle spears and got a stupid-tasty idea. So, big-ass pickle goes into the bun with the all-beef frank with tomatoes, mustard, crunched-up Ruffles and some home-made fries. Really needs some onions and relish. But hey, it works. Sorta. 

Spinach Muenster Breakfast Ciabatta

Spinach Muenster Breakfast Ciabatta

homemade

B+

This was an easy win. A fried egg sandwich on a soft, spongy ciabatta roll? Of course. Melt way too much Muenster cheese all over everything? Boom. Sautée baby spinach and garlic and stuff some of that rich goodness on this sucker? Absolutely. There is, of course, one obvious omission, and that's crispy bacon. There's always next breakfast.

The Krabtastic

The Krabtastic

homemade

C+

I don't know how to explain this really. I guess it's just another cheap, quick sandwich I got to used to eating in my formative sandwich years. Everything here is from Albertsons: a kaiser roll, a couple leaves of butter lettuce, a pile of fake-ass crab salad from the butcher counter. Fake-ass crab salad is better than I remember. The chunks of fake crab—probably some cheap white fish—are bigger. There's quite a bit of diced celery and dill mixed in with its questionably creamy goodness. And there are baby shrimp in there, too. Don't misunderstand: I'm still embarrassed about eating this. But it's pretty tasty. Maybe.

Spicy Barbecue Chicken Melt

Spicy Barbecue Chicken Melt

homemade

B+

Relatively simple yet highly effective: Cajun spice-dusted, grilled chicken breast, sliced into tender mini-strips and squished into a ciabatta with chipotle pepper-laced white cheddar, made toasty in the oven and then dabbed with Horsetooth Hot Mess porter, bourbon and coffee barbecue sauce. Lots of flavor, a little heat, a little sweet, lots of warm bread crunch. A pretty magnificent combination, as it turns out.

Sandwich Sundays Presents: Everything on Everything

Everything on Everything

homemade-ish

B

Sandwich Sundays gets even sweeter when you pick up your supplies from Bagel Cafe. A holiday get-together proved the perfect excuse to get way too much meat, cheese, veggies, pickles, bagels and spreads from our favorite deli—nay, the best deli in Las Vegas!—and go to work. We couldn't decide what to put on our everything bagel, so we didn't—we grabbed it all. Turkey, ham, roast beef and pastrami, Swiss cheese and cheddar, lots of yellow mustard, tomato, cucumber, and pickles on the side. (Whitefish salad on the side, too, but that's another subject.) The result? Pure nap-inducing pleasure, a thick mess of meaty splendor. Add a soft couch and a football game and all of a sudden, holidays with the family is the best thing that ever happened.

Cheese Breakfast Biscuit

Cheese Breakfast Biscuit

homemade

A

If you want a great breakfast sandwich, make it yourself. You don't have to go all-out like we did: making cheddar jalapeño biscuits from scratch, slicing one open and melting even more sharp cheddar cheese on both sides, frying coins of capacola until crispy and bacon-esque, and wrapping everything around a fried egg with yolk ready to explode. Super-rich, slightly greasy, a little spicy, pretty much perfect. After building and devouring this sucker, we almost dare you to make a better breakfast biscuit bite.

The Round Two

The Round Two

homemade

C

When I was a kid, the leftover Thanksgiving turkey sandwich was something I anticipated almost as much as the dinner itself. We'd eat the traditional big meal in the afternoon, become superlazy, and then around 7 or 8 I'd creep into the kitchen and plaster two slices of Wonder Bread with white meat, mayo, salt and pepper. That's it. I was a minimalist turkey sandwich builder. Others would go hot with gravy, crafting open-faced masterpieces that sound real delicious right about now. But I don't have that in front of me. I have this. It was an attempt to replicate that minimalist childhood sandwich, but it turned out to be a lesson and that lesson is this: You can't make a great leftover sandwich if you don't have all the leftovers. I didn't have Thanksgiving at my house this year, but I did swipe some turkey, stuffing, and a mom-baked loaf of country white bread. That's not enough. I need all the proper tools at my disposable. I don't want that minimal sandwich anymore; I want the works. The best I could do was smear some tangy, fruity, cranberry-esque black currant mustard on this beautiful bread and stack turkey and mozzarella cheese inside, plus that nostalgic blast of salt and pepper. It tastes fine, but it's crying out for lettuce and tomato and bacon and yes, even mayo. I fantasized about toasting thicker slices of the mom bread and squashing dark meat, gravy and stuffing inside, melting it all together with some sharp cheddar cheese. But this is all there is. Next year, I'll do it right, or I won't do it at all.

Turkey Chili Cheese Dog

Turkey Chili Cheese Dog

homemade

B

There's no downside to making too much chili. If you're making chili, you should make damn sure that you're making too much. It will give you an excuse to buy some simple hot dogs and buns, grate some cheese, and fashion an entirely different feast. This chili is seriously spicy with loads of roasted Hatch green chilies speckled among tomatoes, onions, ground turkey and a host of spices. (No, not sharing my chili recipe with you.) If your chili is tasty enough, you can get away with buying cheap, totally mediocre franks and buns, like I did, but I don't encourage such behavior. Get the good stuff if you want to create a truly transcendent chili dog.

Sandwich Sundays Presents: The Colby Burger

The Colby Burger

homemade

B

It's called this because it's full of Colby cheese, right? Wrong. It was made by brother Colby, one of the originators of Sandwich Sundays. It's his take on a Juicy Lucy, a massive beef patty magically stuffed with cheese before being cooked into a gooey, greasy, delicious mess. He filled these babies with sharp cheddar, creating a lava flow of cheese when you cut or bite into them. We grilled 'em and plopped 'em on soft rolls with griddled ham, homemade spicy brown mustard, and yes, another layer of cheese … Colby Jack! There's no doubt that this is the cheesiest burger ever consumed.

Tzatziki Burger

Tzatziki Burger

homemade

B-

It only recently occurred to us that a veggie burger patty—especially one with a bit of Indian spice like this one—is a perfect fit for cool, creamy tzatziki sauce. So we put these friends together on a potato bun with some greens, and boom, a sorta Greekish veggie burger that satisfies. It would have been better with some sort of crunchy, spicy pickled thing on top, but hey, it's a process.

Sandwich Sundays Presents: Ham Salami Croissant

Ham Salami Croissant

homemade

B

What are the chances your average ordinary supermarket croissants are going to be flaky, buttery and delicious? Not good, right? These were, somehow, so we slathered them with mustard and stacked smoked honey ham, dry salami, provolone cheese, iceberg lettuce leaves and sliced roma tomatoes between the crispy goodness and straight went to town. Sometimes noisy sandwiches are fun.