Sweet and Savory Pastrami Sandwich

Making a good sandwich has very little to do with a recipe or fancy equipment and everything to do with knowing flavors.

Balancing flavors and textures is what makes a great sandwich great.

If you’re trying to make a good sandwich out of stuff you have sitting around (something I do regularly), try to think about adding something sweet (if your sandwich has a lot of savory things) or something crunchy (if your sandwich has a lot of soft textures).

You almost want your sandwich to fight with itself and then your mouth will win.

Need an example? Today’s your lucky day. This Open Faced Pastrami Sandwich fits the bill!

Open Faced Pastrami Sandwich

Strange ingredients

As far as I can tell, these ingredients have never been smashed together in a sandwich in the history of the internet.

Believe it or not that is pretty hard to do unless you are actively trying to do it.

But hey, these were some things in my fridge on a particular day and so I went through my sandwich calculus and decided that they just might work out.

I decided to make this an open-faced sandwich, but you could smash it all together and put it in a panini press or something if that’s your style.

Regardless of your style, smear some fig jam on some bread to start.

If you don’t have fig jam, use something not cloyingly sweet. Avoid grape at all costs.

Then lay on a few strips of pastrami which I’m pretty sure is the perfect deli sandwich meat.

Smear some mustard on top of the pastrami which ends up sandwiching the meat in a sweet/savory sauce situation.

Then pile on some grated sharp cheddar and a few thinly sliced apples. Between the apples and the toasted bread, there’s plenty of crunch, even in the open-faced version of the sandwich.

Pop this in a 450 degree F. oven for about five minutes until the bread is lightly toasted and the cheese melted. If the apples slide off a bit, that’s okay. That means you successfully melted cheese. Just pop them back on the top.

Fresh chives are a nice touch if you have some. They add some color and a little onion flavor to the sandwich, but I wouldn’t buy them just for this sandwich.

This Open Faced Pastrami Sandwich was massively better than I expected it would be.

While I made this sandwich first because it’s what I had in my fridge, I will now crave this sucker and frequently purchase these things just to make this guy.