Picnic sandwiches

Make in advance
or spur of the moment

Picnic sandwiches can be made in minutes so they are the ultimate fast food for eating outdoors. Some can be made in advance, some should be assembled at the picnic site.

The best sandwich recipes are made with really fresh bread, not too thickly sliced and buttered right out to the edges. The butter acts as a protective layer to stop the filling making the bread soggy.

If there are no exciting fillings in your fridge, try mixing the following ingredients to make a tasty butter, which will add a little bite to an otherwise rather dull sandwich:

• half a cup of butter
• half a teaspoon of dry mustard powder
• half a teaspoon of grated onion
• a teaspoon of finely chopped fresh parsley (or half of dried flakes)
• a pinch of paprika or ground black pepper

The moment picnic sandwiches are made they should be wrapped up in foil or plastic wrap to keep them airtight and so fresh and moist. If you are not setting out immediately, pop them, wrapped, in the fridge. Some can even be made the night before if you do this.

A sandwich made with good, fresh bread and a generous amount of savoury filling can be as satisfying as a plated meal. And made with healthy ingredients, they can be good for you too.

Choose your sandwich fillings according to how long they have to remain uneaten.

If you want to be organised for a large picnic, then you can freeze sandwiches for up to two months. They should be well sealed in freezer bags, boxes or foil.

Frozen sandwiches are best kept fairly plain however, using cheese, meat or fish combined with cream cheese or softened butter to make a moist spread.

If you have to make your picnic sandwiches the night before, then you should avoid cucumber, sliced tomatoes, fruit, wet ham or very rare roast beef. You can just get away with salad leaves if they have been very well dried before you use them.

Here are some such sandwich ideas:

• Chop some sliced cooked pork and a stalk or two of celery. Add some apple sauce or jelly, salt and pepper and a pinch of thyme if you have it.
• Mix some chopped cooked chicken with a little mayo and even less sweet chutney plus a tiny bit of curry paste.
• Chop some cooked ham and mix with a splash of Worcestershire sauce, a little made mustard, salt and pepper and bind together with butter.

You’ll find lots more suggestions of what to put between two pieces of bread, as well as in pitta pockets and bagels on one of the first pages ever put on this site: easy picnic food ideas

Pack each flavour of sandwich separately to avoid your banana and honey tasting of salmon or onion etc.

The best picnic sandwiches are made minutes before you leave for your picnic and in fact the very best are put together at the picnic site itself. The fresher the better!

A cucumber sandwich must be eaten straight away. If you have only a short journey then you can still use cucumber but try and give yourself time to “drain” it first. That means, peel at least 90% of the skin, chop it, put in a sieve, sprinkle with salt and leave to drain for at least an hour!

Try some of these fillings in this case:

• tinned tuna and cucumber with mint mayo (mix a little mint sauce with mayo)
• cream cheese with chives, cucumber and crisp salad leaves
• tinned salmon and cucumber

Here are some more spur of the moment sandwiches:

• cottage cheese, ham and peach, bound with a tiny bit of mayo
• mashed banana mixed with honey and chopped walnuts
• cooked corned beef and grated Swiss cheese with a little Thousand Island dressing
• mashed sardines with hard boiled egg and mayo
• peanut butter with tomato chutney
• sliced cold pork, turkey or chicken with sage and onion stuffing
• sliced chicken, sliced cheese, sliced avocado and salsa

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