Today I present to you the latest of my culinary endeavors: the vegetarian sandwich with red radicchio. A complex work, the result of years and years of hard manual and intellectual labor, the prime dish of many of my lunches, dinners, breaks, as well as packed meals for my children’s scout outings. 😎
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Exactly with these three lines you just read, the introduction to this historic recipe began, originally published on this blog on December 9, 2014. Now I am getting ready to update it after more than a decade of honorable service. 😍
Many things have changed over the years. First of all: now I bake regularly and (almost) no longer buy bread, because I far prefer the homemade one.
I was waiting for the right moment to update the recipe, because the old photos (which I will not delete but leave at the end) have long since no longer adequately represented our current sandwiches, almost always made with my homemade bread, leavened with sourdough.
Here it is, this is an example of one of our current vegetarian sandwiches with red radicchio: 😊
Below I leave you the introduction I wrote for the first draft of the recipe. An introduction that still represents us, irony included. 😂 Everything is still current… uh, except for the fact that we are 10 years older! The “children” are no longer children, and the scout outing sandwiches have been replaced by work lunch break sandwiches for Flavia, or Sunday karting sandwiches for Fabrizio. Ahh c’est la vie!
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« I can assure you that preparing a good sandwich while wanting to exclude the mythical ham, or the mythical mortadella, and managing to make it tasty, so tasty that you hear “can you make me another one”… well, it requires a certain level of experience! and can lead to good levels of satisfaction!
And in the end, one then feels also clever and imaginative, besides… ahaha, a compulsive user of one’s own creation!!
Yes, it is like that, I could not avoid tackling the “sandwich” topic in my blog. Because now, after long years of experimentation and various variations on the theme, I can officially declare that I have reached a certain gastronomic level in this difficult art! 😀
The art of the sandwich was widely practiced by my husband, back when we met, and for several years also abused to tell the truth! At that time, the sandwich was his most repeated recipe, also because it was the only one he knew how to cook, after the recipe for milk coffee and the very well-tested recipe for buying pizzas!
And it was the least modified recipe: thousands of identical sandwiches, made with cooked or raw ham, cheese, mainly emmental, and mayonnaise. That’s it.
That era is over! The limited use of meat in our diet has naturally also cut back on cured meats, consequently now ham sandwiches at our house are rare and are mostly reserved for the children and their packed lunches for scout outings. And my husband likes these vegetarian sandwiches, and always asks for a second helping! (And that’s satisfaction 😀).
The vegetarian sandwich I present to you today features my beloved red radicchio, could it be otherwise?
It is naturally a very simple sandwich, but no less delicious for that. You can trust us, we know about sandwiches! 😀 »
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Other types of bread to use for this vegetarian sandwich: 👇
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Economical
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 2 sandwiches
- Cooking methods: No cooking
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
👉 I don’t specify weights because this is a sandwich based on feel 😊 and the filling can be adjusted according to the size of the bread and personal tastes (how do you like it, lightly or heavily filled?).
- homemade bread
- red radicchio
- red onion
- spreadable cheese (or ricotta)
- caciotta (or other cheese of choice)
- olives
- pepper
- mustard (optional)
- mayonnaise (optional)
Tools
- Knife
- Chopping Board
Steps
You can use your preferred bread, preferably homemade.
For this new version of the vegetarian sandwich, today I specifically prepared two small loaves of bread following the same recipe I used for Garlic Bread. The recipe is here: Small loaves of bread leavened with licoli
First, wash the radicchio and cut it into strips and slice the onion.
Cut the bread.
Spread the fresh cheese (or ricotta) on one slice.
Spread a thin layer of mustard and another of mayonnaise on the other slice.
👉 Both mustard and mayonnaise are optional, the sandwich is excellent even without sauces. Specifically, mayonnaise, if used, should be applied in small quantities, otherwise, it will overpower the other flavors.
Add the radicchio, onion, olives (black or green as per preference), and caciotta.
👉 Instead of caciotta, any other cheese will do, from emmental to fontina or similar. In the first version, I used a Calabrian caciotta which I found in both sweet and smoked versions, it was excellent, and I hope to be able to buy it again someday!
👉 If you decide not to use mayonnaise and mustard, I recommend dressing the radicchio with oil and vinegar.
Finish with a sprinkle of pepper.
And enjoy your sandwich!
And here are the photos from the previous version of the recipe, I leave them here (even though they are “monsters”, as we say in food blogging, the old, and ugly, photos 😀), but they have represented this recipe for a long time, their place is here!
Salt-Free Tips
Excluding mustard and mayonnaise, and making bread at home (as well as spreadable cheese at home), the only ingredients containing salt in this sandwich are the cheese and olives. Oh, of course, you can also make mayonnaise at home, to enjoy salt-free mayonnaise that the market doesn’t offer. Hooray for self-production! 💪😉
If you’re interested in reducing or eliminating salt, always remember to:
▫ Reduce the salt gradually, the palate needs to adjust slowly and should not notice the progressive reduction.
▫ Use spices. Chilli, pepper, curry, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, cumin…
▫ Use aromatic herbs. Basil, parsley, oregano, thyme, sage, marjoram, rosemary, mint…
▫ Use seeds. Sesame, pine nuts, almonds, walnuts…
▫ Use spicy vegetables or fruit. Garlic, onion, lemon, orange…
▫ Use my salt-free vegetable granule and gomasio.
▫ Prefer fresh foods.
▫ Avoid cooking in water, prefer cooking methods that do not disperse flavors (griddle, foil, steam, microwave)
▫ Avoid taking the salt shaker to the table!
▫ Occasionally allow yourself to break the rule. It’s good for morale and helps to persevere.
If you don’t want, or can’t, give up salt:
▫ You can still try my recipes by salting according to your habits.
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