Sandwich inspiration (and my view on lunch meat)

To be honest, I never really liked lunch meat that much anyway so it was very easy for me to stop buying it. The main reason we gave it up was because (especially after watching Food, Inc.) we made a decision to only eat locally raised meats. And have you ever seen someone slicing off pieces of deli meat at your local farmers’ market? Shortly after writing off all lunch meat I soon realized other good benefits would come from this decision as well. Like helping us to reduce our overall meat consumption, which is better for our health and environment anyway. So this is the reason I haven’t bought a pack of deli meat in over a year (or even missed it one bit), and as you can see it was quite a simple decision for us!

With that being said, this change opened up a whole new window of opportunity when it came to sandwiches. But with anything, I can sometimes get in a rut. So I recently asked my wonderful facebook community to share their most favorite sandwich combinations, which helped inspire this fresh list of sandwich ideas below. Please also feel free to leave your ideas in the comments at the bottom!

Cold Sandwiches / Wraps

• Hummus with cheese, avocado and veggies (like carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, bell peppers or tomatoes)
• Egg salad (variations include: curry or chopped green olives)
• Egg salad BLT (bacon, lettuce, and tomato)

  

• (Who doesn’t love) PB&J
• Peanut butter and banana
• Cream cheese and jelly
• Sprouts, provolone, honey mustard and avocado
• BLT with or without crabmeat
• BLT with avocado and spicy mayonnaise on focaccia bread
• Open faced with black bean hummus, roasted red bell peppers, and avocado
• Brie cheese, thin slice of green apple, and homemade chicken salad with grapes and walnuts
• Chicken, black bean dip, tomato and avocado with a little squeeze of lime
• Open faced with tuna salad, melted provolone and a slice of tomato
• Herbed cream cheese and cucumber
• Pecan-raisin bread with granny smith apple, goat cheese and honey
• Pimento cheese
• Cheddar, tomato, cucumber, a little mayo, salt and pepper
• Grilled chicken, baked apples and brie, fig jam and lettuce
• Sliced cucumber, tomato, hard-boiled egg, mayo
• Cream cheese on whole-wheat cinnamon raisin bread or banana bread

Hot / Grilled Sandwiches

• Caprese (pictured above – great on bread or a pita)
• Pimento cheese (yes…it is amazing served hot!)
• Roasted veggies, pesto, and cheese
• Grilled cheese with or without tomatoes (trick: sprinkle a tad bit of grated Parmesan just before the bread gets fully browned!)
• Grilled swiss cheese and avocado
• Grilled egg, cheese and tomato
• Melted brie with thin sliced apple
• Grilled veggie sandwich with garlic mayonnaise and feta
• Mushroom, roasted bell pepper, goat cheese, and pesto panini

[Entered into Food Renegade’s Fight Back Friday]