Start Grilling Season With This Open Sausage Sandwich

The sun is out and the pollen is killing my will to live, which means grilling season has officially arrived. You can start the season with a big old pork shoulder or smoked chicken, but I like to make it easy for myself with a simple, low-risk, high-reward project. This grilled sandwich is just such a project.

To be honest, I always “start” the grilling season by cleaning the grill, which I hate. It’s rough, tedious work, and I like to reward myself by making a little treat as soon as it’s done. Again, this sandwich fits the bill. It’s more special than a hot dog or a hamburger and falls somewhere in between in terms of simplicity, and it’s ready in just six minutes.

I first saw this genre of sandwiches on Instagram and was immediately intrigued. There are many videos showing bare-faced grilled delight, but the format is always the same: a pair of male hands cuts a baguette in half, puts some soft-looking cheese on the bread, then sensually cuts a sausage in half and kneads it. over cheese. The whole thing is then cooked sausage side down either in a pan or on the grill. (In one video, a man takes a torch to meet him after he exits the grill pan. I don’t understand why, however.) When the meat is cooked, it is doused with some kind of herbal oil and then cut into slices. and ate.

The sandwich is often referred to as “choripan”, but this is a misnomer. This article from Saveur goes into great detail on how to make an authentic Argentine choripan, but aside from the exactingness of the chimichurri, the main difference is in the assembly: the sausage is fried separately from the bread, rather than being baguetted and grilled as a whole. Choripans are also closed, but this thing is open. Which may not seem like such a big deal, but there are rules for sandwiches, dammit. Oh no cheese. That’s a pretty big difference.

This smash-and-grill may not be a traditional choripan – and I’m not saying it is, and I’m not saying it’s an improvement over the Argentinean sandwich – but it’s fun to make and eat.

How to make a sausage sandwich

Start by choosing an overall flavor profile with matching bread, meats, cheese, and a finishing sauce. I chose three: a spicy Italian sausage with mozza and oregano butter, a sausage with Swiss butter and the same butter (I didn’t feel like making two butters), and a breakfast sausage with American cheese and maple syrup. All three clapped.

As for the sausage, you don’t have to stick to the links that come with the casing; using minced meat works just as well, if not better, and there is no need to use casings as they will simply get stuck between the meat and cheese, creating a texture component that some people may find unpleasant. Using the uncased sausage is stickier and helps it stay in one piece. (If you are cooking real horipan, it makes sense to leave the casings on as they will cook properly and provide a nice pop.)

Start by splitting the bread in half and putting some cheese on top. Slices are easier to work with, but grated can be worked with if mixed with meat (again, crumbly sausage is preferable here). There is no “correct” amount of cheese, but you want the sausage to cover it as completely as possible.

Mash the sausage over and around the cheese. If you are using a standard size baguette, you will need two links or 6-8 ounces of ground sausage. I used mini baguettes and battards, which only needed one link (about 4-5 ounces) to fully cover.

How to make a Sausage Sandwich

I respect gravity as much as any other woman in STEM, and I was a little worried that the sandwich would fall apart if flipped. This is wrong. The sausage was sticky enough to hold everything together so be sure of your movements and you’ll be fine.

Start by setting up a classic ” two-zone ” charcoal configuration. Heat the coals to white with a chimney (read more about this here ) and stack them on one side of the grill. (If you are using gas, turn half of the burners to maximum and leave the other half off.)

Place the sandwich, meat-side down, on the “indirect heat” side of the grill (the side without coals or burners). Cover the grill – if you’re using charcoal, make sure the vents are fully open – and let it cook for five minutes.

Move the sandwich to another area, right above the coals. Let simmer for another minute or so, and don’t be afraid to press and encourage flashes. Sausage has a lot of fat, and these evaporated droplets will give your sandwich a classic “fried” taste.

Once the sausage is browned and the bread is lightly browned, remove the sandwich from the grill and season it with the sauce, boys.

You can use the classic chimichurri, plain herbal butter, or go wild and drizzle with something sweet, as I did with this breakfast sausage sandwich that ended in maple syrup.

Repeat until you run out of sausage and bread, then add more sausage and bread until you run out of ideas for interesting new combinations of bread, sausage and cheese. It could take the whole season, so it’s best to start right now.