Freezing complete & semi-finished sandwiches makes life a lot easier...
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| Sandwiches for lunchboxes & afternoon tea, all or part frozen in advance. Peanut butter & jam pinwheels; ham & cheese fingers; tuna sweetcorn daisies |
Here's a batch of sandwiches designed to make cook's life a lot easier with the help of the freezer and the willing hands of family/friends.
The sandwiches have quite the novelty factor and will please kid/ults heading off with lunchboxes or ladies who take tea with crustless sandwiches.
67goingon50 has posted suggestions for skinnier, healthier budget sandwiches in the past. All of that advice applies here, though there is room for a little more richness in both spreads and fillings when it comes to frozen sandwiches.
When it comes to freezing wholly-made or part-made sandwiches, a few general rules might be helpful for best results:
The Bread
While all sandwiches can be made with plain all garden-variety sliced supermarket bread (back in the vogue, one reads) 67 strongly recommends long loaves, laterally sliced, as below.
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| Stock Photo |
Though a little more expensive, laterally sliced bread is uniformly thin, with a bigger surface that's much easier to stamp shapes out of. You can also buy large supermarket loaves, which are much cheaper, and slice them yourself with a heavy serrated knife. They'll be okay if a little uneven (see below) but are a bit of a faff.
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| Finger sandwiches from home-sliced lateral bread |
Lateral loaves come in white, wholemeal and caraway. Some bakeries are now producing novelty colours.
If preparing sandwiches in non-standard shapes, any cookie cutter will be suitable -- daisy cutters or scone cutters or gingerbread men or whatever. Get the kids to help. Press down hard on the bread using the sharpest cleanest side of the cookie cutter, then twist. Place on a tray or in a box, cover to stop the bread from drying out. When you have enough shapes, spread them out on a baking tray; freeze flat. Place frozen shapes into separate zip bags. (Leftover bread can be used to make breadcrumbs or turned into one of the many 67goingon50 delicious bread & butter puddings, on Nav Bar:Recipes 1/Frugal & Bakery)
Stockists for lateral bread at the end of the post.
Freezing bread/partly completed sandwiches/whole sandwiches:
Slices - lay flat on a tray, freeze, stack in a plastic bag. If you want to get ahead of yourself, butter each slice lightly to the edges; freeze flat; store with a small square of greaseproof paper separating slices
Standard Sandwiches with freezable fillings - store in a plastic box with an air-tight lid and with a square of greaseproof paper between each sandwich OR wrap each sandwich in cling film OR place in sealable sandwich bags. Defrost overnight as needed; add salad and dressing once defrosted.
Fingers- make up triple layer sandwiches using freezable fillings (eg. ham or pastrami & dairy or vegan cheese); freeze in blocks without slicing, either wrapped in clingfilm or in a box with an air tight lid; defrost then cut into fingers. (You may need to secure the block of sandwiches with cocktail sticks)
Pinwheels - lightly butter bread; cover with a layer of clingfilm, roll up, wrap tightly in clingfilm; freeze and bag up or store in a box. Once defrosted, unroll, spread with fillings, re-roll tightly, securing with toothpicks, slice into portions.
Shapes - freeze flat; place tops and bottoms in separate bags; use as needed
Freezable fillings has been posted elsewhere but is worth repeating:
(Note: don't freeze Mayonnaise, salad or cooked egg whites )
- Cooked meat: meatloaf, pate, cold burgers, chicken, roast pork or beef, pastrami, kosher turkey deli meat, regular or air-dried hams
- Cheese: cheddar, camembert, brie, Swiss, feta (well drained)
- Cheese: cheddar, camembert, brie, Swiss, feta (well drained)
- Tinned Fish: plain tuna or salmon, well drained but no mayo before freezing
- Smoked salmon
- Cooked egg yolk, not white
- Peanut butter (but not jam)
- Chocolate-hazelnut spread
- Chocolate-hazelnut spread
- Grilled eggplant and zucchini
- Preserved sunblush or sun-dried tomatoes (well drained)
- Onions: carmelised or as onion jam
- Tapenade (olive paste)
- Mustards
- Chutney
- Mustards
- Chutney
- Pickles
(Sources: Frost bite, MOMables)
Make up your sandwiches using only freezable fillings. Freeze, carefully label fillings to indicate the sandwiches are not complete. After defrosting, add non freezable fillings such as mayonnaise and salad ingredients.
Examples:
Examples:
a) Peanut butter and jam pinwheels: lightly butter and roll up bread; wrap tightly in clingfilm; freeze; when ready to use defrost overnight, spread with peanut butter and jam; roll back up and slice into portions.
b) Tinned fish: drain well, flake lightly, mix with finely diced red onion (opt); spread on buttered slices or shapes, top with buttered slice or shapes; freeze; after defrosting, add layer of mayonnaise and chosen additions such as corn or olives.
c) Chocolate Hazelnut Spread: make up chocolate hazelnut sandwiches as usual, in shapes or fingers; freeze; after defrosting, add banana slices.
d) Also try this part-finished freezing method with cheese (& apple); ham (& celeriac salad), or the popular hoisin chicken - make up sandwiches with chicken only and freeze; defrost, then add celery, radish, mayo, hoisin and lettuce.
See Also: specific sandwich fillings (meat, fish, vegetarian) in the Archive
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Stockists for Laterally Sliced Loaves
Bread Factory 0208 457 2088
- 800gm/28oz £.177
1kilo/32oz £3.86
- accounts
- deliveries
*call ahead for orders
Unsliced 600-800gm loaves, about £1.10'ish (2018)
Morrisons: white, wholemeal & granary
Sainsbury's: white & multiseeded
Whole Foods says its bread slicers cut laterally as well as conventionally but 67 has not tested them.
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This information has been provided by B Lee/ Bright Sun Enterprises and may not be reproduced without the author's written permission. Bright Sun accepts no liability for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided.
