Summer is veggie sandwich season. The vegetable sandwich is a simple art form, but, because it is so simple, it is often misunderstood. You do not need to pile 35 things onto a veggie sandwich to make it satisfying. You do not need a meat substitute. You don’t even need cheese!
Here’s how to make a good veggie sandwich. First, choose your produce strategically. Keep the numbers low so that each flavor can stand on its own, and in contrast with each other. Find one complementary sauce. Try to have a pickled or spicy element, not to overpower the rest, but to make it sing a lively tune. Use good, toasty bread.
In my house, we often roast sweet bell peppers and cherry tomatoes, then contrast them with a tangy chimichurri. Cauliflower and caramelized red onions work well, too. Tomato sandwiches are one of the great pleasures of life, whether in the form of BLTs or featuring thick-cut tomatoes, sprouts, herbs, and fresh mozzarella. If you’ve got a ton of fresh garden herbs at the ready, they’ll make a sandwich by themselves with the single addition of tinned fish.
This is all set up to tell you about Dallas’ best vegetable sandwiches. I’ve got a full list below, but first I want to highlight a new dish on the scene, from Hide, the cocktail bar on Greenville Avenue. This is not to say that Hide’s veggie sandwich is the very best—just the most recent one I ate.
Hide doesn’t overthink it, and the cheffy touches are smart. First touch: using a seeded bread for extra texture and crunch. Second touch: thinly shaving cauliflower and then lightly pickling it. When my sandwich arrived, I thought shaved parmesan was poking out of the edges. Nope! That’s pickled cauliflower. Terrific.
The main components, by the way, are roasted red bell peppers, tomatoes, arugula, and smashed avocado. Something creamy, something tangy, something raw, something cooked. It’s an efficient, smart ingredient list. At home, I will copy the quick-pickling idea and add more arugula to my sandwiches. I like a restaurant dish that teaches me something about home cooking.
Although Hide’s food menu has plenty of bar bites, dishes like the veggie sandwich are capable of great subtlety. To whoever wedged boozy progressive cocktails and light vegetarian lunches into a single business model: thank you. Dallas needs more such surprises.
Ten More Great Vegetable Sandwiches in Dallas
- Sabich, an Israeli street sandwich at Sachet with eggplant and egg; 4270 Oak Lawn Ave.
- Tomato and burrata sandwich at La Bodega; 208 W. Eighth St.
- Rau veggie bánh mì at Sandwich Hag; 1902 Botham Jean Blvd.
- Healthy Farmer, Veginator, and mushroom pastrami sandwiches at Goodfriend Package; 1155 Peavy Rd.
- Happy Hippie (“on hippie bread”) at Uncle Uber’s Sammich Shop; 2713 Commerce St.
- Fried nopales torta at Las Almas Rotas; 3615 Parry Ave.
- Falafel sandwich with amba on Iraqi bread at Bilad Bakery in Richardson; 850 S. Greenville Ave., Richardson.
- Le Sud, with grilled zucchini and olive tapenade on focaccia, at Knox Bistro; 3230 Knox St., Ste. 140.
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