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13 Chefs From 13 Countries Make Sandwiches

Ever wondered what sandwiches look like around the world? Epicurious brings together 13 chefs from 13 countries to showcase their sandwich recipes. From a classic American turkey club to a Vietnamese Bánh mì, discover how cultures around the world make sandwiches in their own mouthwatering way.

Released on 04/15/2026

Transcript

[upbeat music plays]

You are about to see-

13 different chefs.

From 13 different countries.

[Group] Make sandwiches.

Today, I'm making cemita.

It has just everything on a sandwich.

Chicken, ham, queso oaxaca, avocado.

But a cemita, it has to be with a cemita bread,

otherwise don't call it cemita.

It's very similar to a burger bun.

It has the sesame.

And I'm going to remove the inside of the bread

because we going to stuff that,

toast it with a little bit of butter.

Toasting the bread,

it will make it a little softer

and crispy at the same time,

so it'll be easy to eat.

And this is how your bread should look like.

One thing about cemitas is that it has to be big.

When you do the avocado,

you put it so every single bite

has the same love of avocado.

And now, the chicken milanesa.

We pound the chicken breasts,

flour, egg whites and panko.

Then we fry it, and then we put it in a cemita.

I want the ingredients to come out of the sandwich.

And then we're gonna do quesillo.

Queso oaxaca.

It needs to be pulled the moment of.

If you pre-pull this,

put it on the fridge, and then it'll be hard.

So that's why it needs to be pulled almost a la minute.

Little salty. Very creamy, very delicious.

Now, I'm going to do the salchicha,

the seared beef hot dogs.

It elevates this into the sandwich.

Chipotles. Chipotles are smoked jalapenos.

They are little sweet because they're in a lobo.

So it has garlic, it has onions.

How spicy do I like my cemita? Very spicy.

That's why I put pickled jalapenos.

And then, of course, onions.

I love red, that are a little more sharp.

Tomatoes. Papalo.

Papalo is very aromatic, very strong, very sharp.

When you smell it, I smell the campo.

I grow up in a campo. Campo, it's the farm.

Papalo can be a mix of cilantro and rocket, arugula,

but it's so aromatic.

A little bit of olive oil. And then ham, jamon.

In Mexico, we have over 25 different kinds of sandwiches

and people will be like, Oh, torta ahogadas are delicious.

Molletes are delicious.

We making cemita. It's the best. Let's coronate this baby.

Now, this size is medium size.

I'm gonna cut in half so you see how beautiful it looks.

Look how beautiful this looks. Hmm.

Tastes like two different kinds of spiciness,

picklish, smoky, very creamy from the cheese.

The bread is light. It's toast it perfectly.

I wish it was bigger.

Today we're gonna be making

a Bombay style masala toastie sandwich.

It's two slices of bread,

and then you have the world as your oyster

to what you wanna put inside it.

So, this is a sandwich that you find

on the streets of India.

The best part about making the sandwich

and something that always caught my eye was

the little instrument that we used to make the sandwich.

Rather than using a pan, you stuff your sandwich

inside this, and then over an open flame, go up and down.

So, you could literally have six or seven of these

doing six or seven sandwiches at once.

So, I have some softened amul butter.

Slather on some green chutney,

which is a paste that I've made with some mint and cilantro,

some green chilies and raw green mangoes.

Some ginger garlic paste, boiled potatoes

with some curry leaves,

some ginger garlic paste, some mustard seeds.

Just add this really nice layer and depth of flavor.

This is chat masala.

It's made out of cumin powder and coriander powder

and black pepper and dry mango powder.

And it just has a little bit of red chili powder.

I know there are some people

who are not fans of tomatoes in a grilled sandwich.

So, tomato is something that you can

completely skip and omit,

and go with some green peppers.

For me, none of these sandwiches are complete

without amul cheese.

It's like a processed Indian cheese

similar to the Monterey jack.

Last, seasoning.

So, we are ready to cook our sandwich.

I'm gonna preheat this. You want the pan to be really hot.

It's just gonna taste much nicer.

It's gonna cook much faster.

So once it's ready, put some butter inside of this.

This is not time to be shy with the butter.

This is what's gonna give it

that really nice, golden brown crust.

Bread that's kind of sticking out,

it's gonna kiss the flame,

so it's gonna get this really nice toasty charred flavor.

And the best part about it is

you can always open up and see how we're doing.

Put a little bit more butter on top.

So, the sandwich is cooked. Smells amazing.

Just look at that.

And this is where it gets really interesting, right?

So, more melted butter on top.

You take some of that green chutney,

put a little bit of that on top.

I have these crispy potato noodles.

They're called sem aloo bhujia.

Adding texture to your sandwich.

It just melts in your mouth.

The engineering, the machine that we use

to make the sandwich compresses it all together.

It just all comes together. The flavors are banging.

This has to be one of my most favorite sandwiches

of all time.

So, I gonna make banh mi today.

In Vietnam, banh mi is a quick thing that we grab on the go.

When the French come and colonize Vietnam,

they brought their own version of baguette

and we turn it to our own version.

It's super airy.

We gonna store adding gio thu,

which is Vietnamese hard cheese.

Two different kind of Vietnamese ham.

This is beef and this is pork.

So, this is Vietnamese pate. It have a lot more moisture.

I mix between pork liver and chicken liver,

and we add crispy shallot, and of course, fish sauce.

Cucumber to add crunch.

Daikon and carrot pickle.

And my favorite things: Vietnamese herbs.

Cilantro, scallion, basil, Vietnamese mint.

The flavor not too strong, like regular mint.

We gonna finish with pork floss.

This is central Vietnam version of hot sauce.

It's not too spicy, and it's go perfectly with the banh mi.

It bursting with flavor, is so comforting.

It's something really quick for you to just grab and go.

This is a very high quality banh mi.

So today, we are making a chicken suya sandwich.

Suya is everyone's favorite street snack.

The suya spice is a very key component to our culture,

like very, very, very key.

The villagers, this is how they used to marinate their meat

and keep it well seasoned.

I homemade the suya spice.

It is a mix of kuli-kuli,

which is just a roasted peanut,

ginger powder, garlic powder, paprika to give it

that smoky flavor.

So, now we're gonna make our slaw.

This is white cabbage, purple cabbage, carrots.

Grab a little bit of mayo. Ketchup.

A little bit of sriracha. I made this from scratch.

It was habanero, garlic, and that's it.

Nigerian food is actually very spicy.

My aunt used to add a scotch bonnet onion to her cereal.

Don't ask me. I don't know.

So we are ready to assemble our sandwich, y'all.

So agege bread is the most important staple

that any Nigerian, African can have in their home.

It's nice and fluffy, dense, very buttery and milky.

So here we have our toasted agege bread

with just a little bit of butter on both sides.

Chicken breast marinated with Greek yogurt, suya spice.

And we grill it on the stove top.

The slaw, tomato, some purple onion

with another piece of chicken suya.

And I know I already seasoned that chicken up,

but I'm gonna add a little bit more razzle dazzle.

A little bit more slaw. Yeah.

Mm. You hear that crunch?

Ooh.

Hmm.

This is so yummy. Mm, wow.

The sandwich today, we call it a Bauerntoast,

farmers' sandwich.

Pork belly, cabbage, cheese, and pickles.

We in Austria eat it after a heavy workout in the woods.

So, if you go to the gym,

you definitely deserve a Ruben sandwich from Kaffeekart.

So with the sandwich, I always like to have slaw.

We have red cabbage, some walnuts toasted.

We break it up a little bit, sliced apples right in there.

The dressing is a lingonberry dressing,

like the Americans eat turkey, the cranberries.

It's a little bit acidic

and will cut right through that heavy pork belly.

I love to have pork belly.

It's cured for a few days, takes the water out,

and then the spice, a little bit garlic and caraway seeds.

And here we gonna assemble, very simple.

We get our rye bread and just seared it on the grill.

We have cabbage, lightly blanched,

sauteed a little bit in butter,

and some onions in there.

Here we have some pickles, sliced long and thin.

You can use the mandolin to slice it like this.

And then, we gonna put the pork belly on there.

And a good cheese is always so important.

This is a Bierkase, a beer cheese from Austria,

from the Alps.

But since it's stronger in flavor, it goes a long way.

Here, we have fully assembled the sandwich

and it's ready to bake in the oven.

Perfect. There we go. Ah, nice and melted cheese.

And we're gonna put this right on top.

Press it down a little bit. Ah, split it up here.

Nice and crispy.

I haven't had one for a long time.

And is, mm, good.

So, today we are making bake and shark,

quintessential Trinidadian sandwich.

It's fried bread, fried shark, and an array of condiments.

Shark is just like a fattier snapper.

You find it mostly at the beach,

especially Maracas Beach.

This is kind of like where it was invented or popularized.

So, this is the bake. This is basically fried dough.

Some people do it a little more dense. I like it light.

So, we start with the lettuce at the base.

We put the shark here.

We season it with fresh limes, cilantro, garlic, ginger,

and you just like, marinade, and you deep fry it.

Probably the most important is the pineapple.

The sweetness balances everything else.

Garlic sauce is basically a garlic aioli.

You blend it with cilantro, tamarind sauce.

Sweet, tart, and spicy. Pandania sauce.

And this is herbaceous, garlicky.

Here. I did it perfect this time around.

Today, I'm gonna teach you guys

how to make Brazilian pao de queijo with pernil.

It's Brazilian cheese bread with slow-roasted pork.

It's from Minas Gerais where my family's from.

And we are very famous and very proud of it.

This little bread make from yucca flour,

milk and local cheese.

You see how chewy it is?

It's because of the yucca flour,

and we are gonna fill them with pernil.

It's like a slow-roasted pork.

Marinate with orange, lime, herbs.

I did this pork shoulder yesterday.

You shred it, you hit it up in this delicious juice.

We have like lots of onion, garlic,

and everybody fights for it.

Pretty simple to assemble.

I don't like to cut through,

'cause then my meat won't escape when I'm like, biting it.

Because of the juice,

you don't need mayonnaise and all that sauces.

Mm, the juice is the better.

Try not to eat all of them before our guests arrive.

Today, we are going to make rou jia mo,

which is a northern style Chinese burger.

It's braised pork folded into a bread.

Even though this is a northern classic

from Xi'an city, Shanxi province,

but you'll see them all over China.

So, I have some pre-made bread.

It's heavily influenced by Middle East flatbreads,

thanks to the Silk Road.

So before I serve them,

I'm going to toast them on a non-stick pan.

So, the bread are warm and then slightly toasted.

Now, we can slice them open and assemble sandwiches.

You can use a pork belly or a pork shoulder

with a little bit of fat.

I simmer them in soy sauce and sugar, wine, ginger

for hours.

It's creamy, smooth, but not greasy at all.

Let's chop the pork up.

[knife hits chopping board]

If you like spicy food, you can add a couple of chilies.

Some people would describe the texture as a pulled pork,

but to me it still has a little bit of bite.

Put some meat in here. Let's stuff as much as possible.

And then, let's put some broth, and then it tastes insane.

Hmm. Oh my god, it's so moist and tender.

And also, I really like the pop of peppers.

And then, it gives a little bit kick. It's sweet and savory.

It's juicy and packed with a lot of flavors.

So, we about to do the karantika.

It's a chickpea flan served on the baguette

with some harissa and cumin.

It's a street sandwich that we find in Algeria

and mostly in Oran.

We are today using the crunchy baguette to add more texture.

Karantika has a really soft texture.

It's made out of chickpea flour, Algerian cheese flour,

and some yeast.

The flavor is really soft,

and that's why we adding like some cumin in it

and some harissa to bring the spice.

I like the crunchiness of the bread

with the softness of the karantika.

This is a simple sandwich,

but it's the most delicious sandwich ever.

I am making a karaage sandwich,

which is Japanese fried chicken.

Karaage means deep fried.

Doesn't necessarily need to be chicken.

It could be fish, it could be vegetables.

So, we are gonna begin by making the slaw today.

I'm using Napa cabbage, smoked daikon pickles,

kind of smokey, almost bacon-like flavor, and scallion mayo.

I'm gonna mix this till it's combined. So, the slaw is done.

We are going to now assemble our sandwich.

We are using milk bread, also known as shokupan.

We lightly toasted it.

Milk bread has milk in the ingredients,

and it makes for a fluffy, softer white bread.

Put some of this slaw. I don't wanna put too much mayo.

There's already a lot of mayo in the slaw.

We have the chicken pieces here,

and you could see all the nooks and crannies.

I'm gonna place this on top.

Clearly, this sandwich is very big.

We wrap it in paper to hold everything together.

[mellow music plays]

It doesn't get old.

I've had this so many times,

but it hits the spot every time.

So today, I'm gonna make a coronation chicken sandwich,

that's kind of a curried chicken salad mix.

Mango chutney, some lettuce, some decent bread.

It was created

for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II back in the 1950s.

Another thing when it comes to British cuisine is

it's very influenced from flavors from all over the world.

India was part of the British Commonwealth.

British cuisine is heavily influenced

by the flavors from India.

I made this stecca bread. It's a no-knead bread.

It's fermented overnight.

You don't really need to roll it, you just gotta bake it,

and it comes out kind of nice like this.

So what goes into a coronation chicken salad?

You're gonna use leftover roast chicken,

mayonnaise with some curry powder, mango chutney.

You wanna put some dried fruit in there,

like cranberries or raisins, chopped cilantro.

We're gonna finish it with some of the lettuce.

This is the biggest coronation chicken sandwich

I've ever made.

Hmm. The bread is great, the chicken and the sweetness.

A little bit of spice in the curry powder. It works, man.

It's really good. We should see this more in the States.

So today, I am making sandwich moo yang.

Moo means pork and yang is to grill.

In Thai culture,

we don't actually eat sandwich in the morning,

but my grandma just make it in the morning.

Then, whenever I grab the sandwich and walk into school,

I feel like I'm cooler than any kid in school.

So, it's such a great memory for me.

This is my grandma recipe.

So, you can find similar sandwich in any 7 Eleven.

They will use pork floss.

But then my grandma think that's a little too boring.

For the pork, which is pork shoulder,

I already seared on the pan.

And this will be really tender. You can see how juicy it is.

Now, we're gonna start assemble the sandwich.

Start with the bread, sriracha mayo,

and then, we will top it with the second layer.

I want the taste of the meat unique and standout itself.

So we put on different layers.

Add some green, cucumber.

The last layer, then we gonna cut up into half and serve it.

The sweetness from the mayonnaise, juiciness from the pork.

The crunch is delicious.

Today I'll be preparing the turkey club.

Toasted bread, bacon, crisp gem lettuce,

nice, fresh heirloom tomatoes.

My first step is always mayonnaise,

because you wanna make something

that kind of holds the meat and the bacon to the bread.

I took a few strips of thickly cut bacon

and roasted it in the oven so it's crispy,

but still a little soft in the middle,

you're gonna end up cutting them in half

to match the same size of your bread.

A little tip that I use is I roll my turkey up

so you get a little bit of height.

And I like to add the tomato next,

because if you were to go lettuce and then tomato,

the lettuce will slide right off the turkey,

versus staying together in the sandwich.

Put mayo on another slice of bread,

and we're gonna stack this thing sky high.

We're just gonna add a little bit more mayo

and then we're gonna repeat the process all over again.

Next to hold everything together

while you're cutting, I'm just gonna slide in

some toothpicks right down the corners.

Then we're gonna take a bread knife, always serrated

to help you get straight down the middle

without smashing the sandwich down.

And there's your perfect turkey club.

Scooby Doo would love this.

[mellow music plays]

Mm, this is a perfect sandwich.

It's a good sandwich, man.

I wanna stop talking and keep eating.

Mhmm.