Turkey bacon panini with Hatch pepper “pimento” cheese recipe
Our first post for our Hatch pepper”pimento” cheese may have been served with Triscuit crackers — which are awesome — but there was absolutely zero chance that this tweaked out cheese dip wasn’t going directly into one of my favorite sandwiches, the turkey bacon panini.
For whatever reason — perhaps an evolutionary quirk of some kind — I never seem to tire of eating hot turkey paninis. I would routinely eat one everyday for lunch for weeks on end — without even the slightest dip in enthusiasm — until the people who love me would finally be forced to intervene on my behalf. According to my circle of trust, my seemingly endless interest in turkey isn’t a quirk, but an addiction. An addiction that they would try to wean me off of by enticing me with other birdless sandwiches and Mexican food. And that works for a while, but one day I’ll just be minding my own business at a Kroger getting paper towels or pickles or whatever, and I’ll happen into the deli section. Someone behind the glass will be shaving up some mesquite-smoked turkey, casually offer me a sample slice, and before I know it, I’m back to butter-balling the smoky-T.
It was immediately after one such occasion that our Cuisinart GR-3 Griddler Jr. died a sudden and mysterious death. I suddenly cut off cold turkey from my supply of hot, grilled paninis. Freak accident? Intervention? Intervention staged as a freak accident? There we go. It could only be on person… To this day, my significant other denies plotting the untimely demise of my Griddler — the spoon for my crack — but I’m fairly certain somebody stepped outside our circle of trust.
At some point, though, she must have felt pity — or had a guilty conscience — because we agreed to get another, even better, panini grill.* And the new Griddler arrived on our doorstep on almost the same day we made a big batch of Hatch chile “pimento” cheese for the first time. It was kismet. From the second I opened that Cuisinart box, I knew that this sandwich was destined for panini greatness.
And we couldn’t have hoped for a better inaugural sandwich. Salty, thick-cut bacon and smoked turkey, smoked Gouda and sharp white cheddar, ripe tomatoes and creamy avocados sandwiched between slices of buttery toasted sourdough… Are you kidding? It may be true that I’m a turkey panino addict and therefore completely biased. But I would bless any detractors with some common wisdom from the street — addicts always have the best shit.
* After some discussion, we ultimately placed our toasted sandwich faith in the full-on “real” Griddler as a replacement. I know it might not make much sense to buy the higher-priced version of a product that just suffered a sputtering (and suspicious) failure on your kitchen countertop, but we loved our other Cuisinart products and felt like giving the Griddler another shot. If the new Cuisinart dies another mysterious death, and my significant other is cleared of any wrongdoing, we’ll take another long look at a Breville, the manufacturer who claims to have invented the sandwich toaster in the first place and whose brand has become synonymous for panini-type grills and panini sandwiches in other parts of the world.
Image: ForkingSpoon
Turkey bacon panini with Hatch chile "pimento" cheese recipe
Not just a turkey bacon panini, smoked turkey and bacon is smothered in a creamy Hatch chile "pimento" cheese and sealed inside toasted sourdough bread.
Ingredients
Instructions
Preheat the panini press or grill pan
Preheat your panini press to medium-high heat, or about 375 degrees F. If you'd like to use a bread other than sourdough, try to choose a thick bread that won't flatten too much when pressed. Ciabatta, French and rye bread will work well.
You can also use a grill pan with a second heavy skillet as a weight, but controlling the pressure with this method is more difficult than a regular panini press.
Butter the bread
Lay out the bread slices on a cutting board or clean surface. Butter the bread slices using a pastry brush, being sure to lightly coat the entire side of each slice. Set aside.
Build and cook the Paninis
Working in batches of 2, place 2 bread slices side by side (butter-side down) on the Panini grill and spread 2 tablespoons of the Hatch pepper "pimento" cheese spread onto each slice of bread using a spatula or the back of a spoon. Leave a gap around the edges to prevent the fillings from squeezing out once they are pressed. Layer each sandwich with 3 ounces of shaved turkey and a slice of bacon (broken in half) and finish assembling each sandwich with a second piece of bread (butter-side up). Close the panini grill lid and cook the sandwiches for 3 to 4 minutes until the toasted sourdough bread develops dark grill marks, the turkey is hot all the way through and the cheese is melted and gooey. Repeat for the remaining sandwiches.
Notes
I sliced up a loaf of sourdough bread for this sandwich. I'm convinced a thick slice of buttered and toasted sourdough bread makes for the best toasted sandwiches but any rustic breads like French or Italian loaf, baguette, focaccia or ciabatta should do very well. For crustier loaves, cut off the ends with a serrated knife and slice a thin layer of the crust off the top and bottom. You still get a nice outside crust and soft, steamy interior, just without all the unnecessary roof-of-mouth Captain Crunch-ing.
Ingredients
Directions
Preheat the panini press or grill pan
Preheat your panini press to medium-high heat, or about 375 degrees F. If you'd like to use a bread other than sourdough, try to choose a thick bread that won't flatten too much when pressed. Ciabatta, French and rye bread will work well.
You can also use a grill pan with a second heavy skillet as a weight, but controlling the pressure with this method is more difficult than a regular panini press.
Butter the bread
Lay out the bread slices on a cutting board or clean surface. Butter the bread slices using a pastry brush, being sure to lightly coat the entire side of each slice. Set aside.
Build and cook the Paninis
Working in batches of 2, place 2 bread slices side by side (butter-side down) on the Panini grill and spread 2 tablespoons of the Hatch pepper "pimento" cheese spread onto each slice of bread using a spatula or the back of a spoon. Leave a gap around the edges to prevent the fillings from squeezing out once they are pressed. Layer each sandwich with 3 ounces of shaved turkey and a slice of bacon (broken in half) and finish assembling each sandwich with a second piece of bread (butter-side up). Close the panini grill lid and cook the sandwiches for 3 to 4 minutes until the toasted sourdough bread develops dark grill marks, the turkey is hot all the way through and the cheese is melted and gooey. Repeat for the remaining sandwiches.
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