Some cheeses (ahem, brie) don’t lend themselves to being sliced. Truly, the best way to serve brie or chevre on a charcuterie board is to take off the plastic wrap and set it in the middle with a tiny cheese knife. Kind of anticlimactic when charcuterie is all about presentation, but c’est la brie.
Alternatively, you could slather your brie on a sandwich and make a Brie-L-T. I like this way. Much less cleanup of goopy cheese on my nice Boos block. Plus, can you imagine how satisfying it is to slather a healthy slab of buttery brie on bread? It’s like butter, but you can eat more of it because it doesn’t have as many calories. Yumyum.
Now the brie is just an addition to the BLT. There’s still bacon, don’t worry. And it’s candied! Uh, yum. Do you season your bacon? If you haven’t, you must try it! It is so, so easy. You literally season it right in the pan. Something as fatty as bacon just sucks in flavors like the vacuum of space.
Since this sandwich is so extra, each element of the Brie-L-T has to go an extra mile. The tomatoes are leveled up by roasting in a balsamic glaze. What’s nice about these fancy-ish toh-mah-toes is they take about five minutes to assemble, and then the oven does the rest of the work. Poof. You can move on to frying bacon and listening to podcasts.
Now I know the traditional BLT has lettuce. Alas, brie just seems like it could do so much better than lettuce, you know? So the “L” here stands for “Leafy green.” That’s the story I am going with, anyway. Leafy greens of the Brie-L-T are macerated arugula leaves. In other words, make a dressing (or buy one) and dredge the arugula leaves in it. I like arugula because it’s got a spicy bitterness, but if you are not into that, try spinach or kale. (Trim the stems of the kale if you go that route or else you’ll suffer a tooth-aching crunch…)
Assembly is pretty easy. Slather baguette with brie. Top with roasted tomatoes, bacon, arugula, and red onions. Eat.
As a side note, something about that arugula looks very wild and tousled, like a chia pet, and I really dig it.
And there you have it. A classic gone classy. Bon appétit!
Brie-L-T Sandwich
Ingredients
Roasted tomatoes
- 5 Medium tomatoes sliced 1/4"
- 1 tsp Kosher salt
- 1/2 tsp Garlic powder
- 2 tbsp Sugar
- 1/3 cup Balsamic vinegar
- 1/4 cup Extra virgin olive oil
Candied Bacon
- 8 strips Bacon
- 4 tsp Sugar
- 1 tsp Black pepper
Macerated Arugula
- 6 oz Arugula (one bag)
- 1/4 cup Extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup Red wine vinegar
- 1 tsp Dusseldorf mustard
- 1/2 tsp Sea salt
- 1/2 tsp Black pepper
Sandwich
- 2 ft French baguette, quartered
- 8 oz Brie cheese Rind removed
- 16 slices Roasted tomatoes
- 8 strips Candied bacon
- 1 bowl Macerated arugula
- 8 slices Red onion
Instructions
Roasted tomatoes
- Preheat the oven to 450°F / 230°C.
- Line a large baking pan with parchment paper. Arrange sliced tomatoes on the parchment paper.
- Sprinkle tomatoes with salt, garlic powder, and sugar. Then drizzle vinegar and oil over tomatoes.
- Bake 30 minutes, or until skins blister.
Candied bacon
- Heat a large frying pan over medium heat. When hot, arrange bacon slices in the pan side by side.
- Sprinkle bacon with half of the sugar and black pepper. Flip the bacon when bottom is crisped and red, about 2-3 minutes. Sprinkle remaining sugar and black pepper and continue frying until crisped and cooked completely, about another 2-3 minutes.
- Transfer bacon to a plate and dab with paper towel. **Don't line the plate with paper towel. The candied bacon will be sticky and adhere to the towel.
Macerated Arugula
- In a large bowl, whisk vinegar, oil, salt, pepper, and mustard until thoroughly combined.
- Drop in arugula and dredge leaves in the dressing, folding with a spoon.
Sandwich
- With one quarter of the baguette, slice it lengthwise and open the bread.
- Slather both sides with brie cheese generously.
- Top side of the sandwich with four staggered slices of roasted tomato.
- Place two strips of bacon on top of the tomatoes.
- Top bacon with a handful of macerated arugula.
- Arrange two red onion slices atop the arugula.
- Top the sandwich with the other brie-slathered bread slice.
- Repeat for the remaining three baguettes.