After a hiatus, I’m ready to start bringing sandwiches for lunch in to work again. I had gotten sick of them and was resorting to frozen entrees or going out at lunch.
Now I want to pack sandwiches again but there’s a problem. The quality of supermarket cold cuts just seems to get worse and worse. Even the rare roast beef at my local market tastes chopped, pressed and formed (and heavily laced with garlic salt). The ham tastes only like salt, as does the smoked turkey.
I make good tuna, chicken or egg salads, but I want to add a couple of recipes to my repertoire. And yes, I know that Google is my friend, but foodnetwork and allrecipes are not and that’s usually what I get in my search results.
There’s ham salad. Ham, hard boiled eggs, some mayonnaise to bind, and lots of dill relish. Use a potato masher to mix up a chunkier version, or food processor for a finer version.
I once saw one of the modern Brit chefs make fish paste for sandwiches, and it sounded really good, offputting name aside. I don’t have a recipe to mind, though.
I am a huge fan of egg curry mayonnaise. Just hard boiled eggs, mayo, and curry powder.
Chicken curry mayonnaise is really good, too, and I often add a dollop of chutney to give it a little fire. Both the curries are excellent with microgreens.
Don’t forget smoked salmon spread …
Lastly, in a pinch, a tin of sardines in mustard sauce, mashed up with a little added salt, doesn’t make half a bad sandwich.
HAM SALAD, ohhhhh yeah. Grew up on it in NE Ohio, never see it on the Atlantic coast. Delicious. If you have a hand grinder that’s the best thing to do to a chunk of smoked ham, but it can be chopped with a big knife or food processor. From there on, follow Sattua’s suggestions, although a touch of good mustard is nice too.
Underwood deviled ham is pretty tasty, as is their chicken spread. They have a few other varieties, too. If you appreciate Spam (and I do), you may like them.
This. Underwood can be doctored* up in so many ways. Add relish, horseradish, diced anything at all. For an alternative, pack crackers and skip the bread of a sandwich. That and Sattua’s ham salad were my first thoughts.
If you make a meatloaf, err towards the dense side and slice it very cold.
Teela, I know what you mean. For a while good cold cuts were fairly easy to find, but not anymore. I never paid too much attention to brand, though, so I don’t know if it’s recipe changes or store-stocking changes or what.
Anyway, I like to make a roast beef spread with leftover roast beef (pot roast or steak works too), whizzed in the food processor with a little cream cheese and mayo. The flavorings vary, but I’ve used Worchestershire sauce, green onions, a little horseradish, parsley…you get the picture. It’s good!
Also, you could try your hand at rillettes. I’ve made them from duck, chicken, and pork. Lasts longer in the fridge than a “meat salad”, very tasty, and good on crackers if you don’t feel like a sandwich. They sound complicated, but that’s not the case.
Check out some southern pimento cheese recipes. Coarsely grated cheddar, chopped pimentos, mayo and cayenne. Easy, especially if you buy the cheese already shredded.
I used to buy a half turkey breast once in awhile, specifically for sandwich purposes. I’d season it very well, roast it slowly so it stayed juicy, then wrap it up and chill it. It was kind of a pain to slice it in the morning when making and packing lunches, but it’s oh so good. Ditto a tri-tip.
Good cold cuts aren’t extinct, but you have to go out of your way nowadays to get them. I know of an excellent German deli, but it’s an hour’s drive away. There’s also a butcher with a smokehouse attached, and they make brilliant ham and smoked turkey, but they’re a long drive as well. If I go to either place, I tend to stock up. I wonder if cold cuts freeze well?
Have you tried those tubs of barbecue pulled pork from the refrigerated section of the grocery store? If you have a microwave at the office, you can nuke up a hot pulled pork sandwich for lunch. They’re pretty good. Or, you know, roast some pork yourself and bring in the homemade version. Even better.
I know you are looking for sandwich spreads but I’ll chime in with some help with the cold cut issue.
This summer I started experimenting with brining full pork loins with a little Mortons Tender Quick, some liquid smoke and various seasonings. There are a bunch of recipes out their for Canadian bacon made this way.
I generally follow those recipes for brining time and the amount of tender quick but I omit the sugar and add liquid smoke and seasonings. Then I bake the loin like a roast and slice it into lunch meat. It’s a little work but it makes great lunch meat for under 3$ a pound.
That’s a good idea. Lately I’ve been buying pork tenderloins at Costco because they make a good small roast for two people. They’d probably take nicely to this type of treatment. Even if I just roasted them plain, they’d make good sandwiches, sliced thin.
