Epic Summer Chicken Sandwiches

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There are a few tips and tricks to help you create some of the best sandwiches of your life, without stress, from the comfort of your own home.

Three quick pieces of advice for sandwich making:

Make sure to lightly toast or griddle your sandwich buns with some butter.

Try to time things using the oven to ensure the sandwich buns, cheese, and chicken are all warm when you assemble the sandwich…this just takes practice!

Don’t skimp on the toppings, along with your choice of condiments!

The following recipe makes two (very large) summer chicken sandwiches.

Ingredients

2 large sesame seed sandwich buns
3 Tbsp butter (softened)
1 Tbsp sunflower seed oil
4 chicken fillets (roughly 2oz each)
¼ tsp Kosher salt
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
¼ tsp smoked paprika
A small section of red onion (very finely sliced)
Juice of ¼ lime
1 Roma tomato (thinly sliced)
8 leaves romaine lettuce (finely shredded)
½ tsp sherry or red wine vinegar
A few grinds of fresh black pepper
1 Tbsp yellow mustard
2 tsp honey

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 250˚F.
Butter your buns with the softened butter.
Heat a nonstick sauté pan until it is warm, and add the buttered buns.
Reduce the heat the medium or medium-low, and lightly toast the inside of the buns until they are golden-brown, or about five minutes.
*Moving the buns around in the pan as they cook helps to ensure a more even golden-brown color on the final product.
When the buns are toasted, remove them from the sauté pan, and add one slice of cheese to the open side of each piece of bread.
Place the griddled buns with cheese on a parchment-lined sheet tray, with the cheese facing up.
Place the sheet tray with the cheesed buns inside the warm oven to melt and crisp-up at 250˚F while you prepare the remaining sandwich ingredients.
For the chicken, add a light layer of sunflower seed oil to the bottom of the sauté pan, and turn the heat up to medium.
Season your thinly-sliced chicken fillets with Kosher salt, cayenne pepper, and smoked paprika.
Sauté the chicken breasts over medium heat in the same sauté pan that was used to griddle the buns.
While the chicken is cooking, combine the finely-sliced red onions with some lime juice, and set the lime-pickled onions aside in a small bowl.
*You can also use a splash of red wine or sherry vinegar, if you don’t have fresh lime in your kitchen.
Add a few drops of sherry or red wine vinegar and some freshly-ground black pepper to the finely-sliced lettuce, and set the seasoned lettuce aside in a bowl.
When the chicken fillets are done cooking, turn off the heat, and remove the chicken fillets from the skillet.
When the chicken is fully cooked-through and you are ready to assemble the sandwiches, remove the toasted buns with melted cheese from the oven.
Assemble your sandwiches with the toasted buns, seasoned chicken fillets, shredded lettuce, thinly-sliced red onion, finely-sliced tomato, yellow mustard, and a drizzle of honey.

Notes

Finely-slice your tomatoes, onions, and lettuce in advance--These sandwiches are best assembled and eaten right away, when the chicken is hot from the sauté pan.

For the red onions pickled in lime juice, note that you can prepare a bigger batch in advance, and use the pickled onions over the course of several days. Try using red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar, especially if you plan to keep the pickled onions for a longer period of time in the fridge.

You can buy chicken for sandwiches like this from the butcher, cut into thinly-sliced fillets from skinless chicken breast—it cooks in minutes, tastes great, and serves as a relatively lean source of animal protein.

You can grill or bake your chicken breast, although I find it’s quicker to cook the chicken in the pan, and it doesn’t require as much time to pre-heat compared to the grill. But (low-heat) grilling and baking would work here. If you grill thin chicken fillets over high heat, you may face problems with sticking and overcooking.