Making sandwich fillings in advance

As I’ve said before on this blog, making great sandwiches consist of four main elements, the bread, the filling, the salad and the condiments. In today’s busy world, anything that you can do to make life easier is always welcomed. I was thinking that if sandwiches are going to take over the world and beat all of those fast food baddies, the process in actually making sandwiches needs to be revamped and made simpler!!

Now, it goes without saying that the part of sandwich making which takes the most time is making the sandwich filling. I suppose this is why people buy(!!!) readymade sandwich fillings/spreads from supermarkets, in order to save time and make life that bit easier, so I got thinking on writing a post on making sandwich fillings in advance and saving them for when needed.

Now obviously, the contents of the fillings that you are making will determine the length of time it can be stored for, but if you have a couple of kids in the house, the fillings that you make will save you time and will be used up fairly rapidly. Sandwich fillings made in advanced will also save you loads of time when preparing food for trips and picnics, and you can get kids involved without having to worry about mayonnaise flying all around the kitchen! Although not 100% fresh, this method of pre-preparing sandwich fillings is a lot better than those tinned fillings available on the supermarket shelf and will certainly taste better.

Diversion from sandwiches……

Another interesting use for readymade sandwich fillings is to use them as dips for nachos, crackers, etc. which means any leftover sandwich filling will not go to waste. So as well as saving money on buying sandwich fillings, you can also save money on those expensive dips.
Talking about nachos, again you can save money rather than buying unhealthy crap from supermarkets. Simply take any round pita style bread, cut into nacho shaped pieces, put them on a baking tray, add a little bit of olive oil to them and throw them into the oven for 10 minutes! This is a great use for any bread leftovers you have.

Ok lets gets back to sandwiches…..

Now I bet your thinking “OK, so pre-made sandwich fillings are my savior, but I don’t have many filling ideas”. Well, this is where I’m going to try and help you out and provide some recipes for sandwich fillings which will keep for around three days in the fridge. I will continually add to this list as and when I get time, so please re-visit this page when you can to see what has been added. Please use your imagination and add/delete items as you see fit. Small changes to these recipes can allow you to create many different sandwich fillings use the same base ingredients + a little ingenuity. Items you can play with to change the sandwich fillings are the veggies/salads, condiments, types of cheeses/meats/breads used, etc.

The best way to store sandwich fillings are in plastic air tight containers, or if you don’t have these, an empty yoghurt pot covered with clingfilm. Once you have taken a sandwich filling out of the fridge and exposed it to room temperature, try to finish with it asap so it can be resealed and put in the fridge in order to maintain its freshness for as long as possible.

As I said, what Im going to present here in terms of sandwich filling recipes is by no means exhaustive. These are meant to spark some ideas in your heads.

Please do share any sandwich filling recipes that you have and show us how clever you can be in your sandwich making!

Please click here to find my list of Sandwich Recipes and Fillings