With chicken, bacon, tomato, lettuce, avocado, cheese, and seasoned mayonnaise, these club sandwiches are undeniably dinner material.
Hello from the United States! My little absence was the result of a lot of chaos: finishing a dissertation, packing, and moving halfway across the world is a lot. But the dissertation is turned in, my old flat is empty and waiting for new students, and I’m writing this from my parents’ house.
This week’s recipe—surprise, surprise—is another sandwich. What can I say? I love them. One of my English flatmates was always puzzled that Abby and I ate so many of them for dinner. But when done right, they’re one of my favorite meals. So easy, so straightforward, and you can stuff them full of pretty much every food group in one go.
If I don’t know what to order at a new restaurant, I always go for a club sandwich. It’s a reliable, safe standby that’s hard to mess up. When I looked up the history of them, reports varied, but the generally accepted origin is the Union Club in New York City and the earliest article that mentions it is from 1889, though it didn’t start showing up on menus until a decade later. This sandwich clearly has a lot of staying power—food trends come and go, but club sandwiches have been on menus for over 120 years.
My take on it is a no-holds-barred approach. The classic ones tend to have meat, tomato, lettuce, bacon, and mayonnaise, with either two or three slices of bread. Sometimes they include cheese or avocado, but rarely both at the same time. But I figured let’s go big or go home, so my version has everything. The mayonnaise even gets a zippy little upgrade with paprika, chives, and lemon juice (which some of you may recognize from a previous post).
You can leave stuff out or sub other stuff in, whatever you want. As you know, I’m a lazy cook most of the time, so I use pre-cooked chicken. Rotisserie would be great here, but pretty much anything works.
This is a monster sandwich. This is undeniably dinner material.
club sandwiches
time: ~25 minutes
makes 2 sandwiches
for the paprika chive mayonnaise
½ cup mayonnaise
1 tsp paprika
½ tablespoon chives, finely diced
½ tsp lemon juice (optional)
pinch of salt
for the sandwiches
4-6 slices bread (depending on if you want the extra layer in the middle)
1 cup cooked chicken, shredded
6 slices bacon
1 large avocado, sliced
2 slices Swiss or Muenster
1 medium tomato, sliced
2 large pieces of lettuce
directions
- Make mayonnaise. Mix all ingredients together and let it chill while you cook the bacon.
- Cook bacon. Bake at 400 for about 15 minutes, or until cooked through. You can cook them to your liking, but I prefer them crispy for sandwiches. While the bacon is cooling, toast the bread slices in a toaster.
- Assemble sandwiches. I do the layers in this order: bread, mayo, chicken, tomato, lettuce, bread, avocado, cheese, bacon, and then put mayo on the last slice of bread and top the sandwich off with it. Slice into halves or triangles, if you want, and skewer with toothpicks to keep them together—but take them out before you eat!
