Everybody knows what to do with those overripe, leftover bananas: make banana bread! But what about when the resulting fragrant, fruity loaves seem to linger? You can, unequivocally, refashion banana bread slices into sandwiches for a tiny taste of the unexpected. A couple of quick considerations will ensure that you do so most successfully.
For one, banana bread is obviously not an appropriate one to one swap for any old sandwich. For example, you probably wouldn’t use it as a vehicle for your Philadelphia cheesesteak — Whiz, American, or provolone preference notwithstanding. Barring any niche cravings, it’s also unlikely to earn much popularity as a sweeter tuna salad pairing. But it can stand in any time some more common sense sweet and salty mashups are in the mix. A banana bread ham and cheese, for example, nods to the classic ham and pineapple pairing, and even winks at the world’s most divisive pizza, all by marrying fruit, meat, and dairy. Banana bread slathered with peanut butter is practically gourmet, and solidly decadent. And it’s at its greatest, in any sandwich case, on a relatively smaller scale.
How it can be even sweeter: leaning in and out of banana bread’s sugared properties
Because of banana bread’s big flavors (versus something like your everyday sourdough), you’ll want to pay close attention to your proportions to avoid overwhelming. So if you are layering it with a bit of ham and Swiss (which would also be excellent toasted), you’ll want to slice the banana bread as thin as possible, while still maintaining its structural integrity. The same goes for a PB (another great grilling candidate), and you might even want to skip the J to avoid a sweetness overload. And, in keeping with that balancing act, banana bread is also tops for upgraded tea sandwiches.
An extra thin slice of banana bread cut in half is a petite but tremendous canvas for tons of flavor combinations. A bit of cream cheese and strawberry slivers would be supreme. Plenty of other fresh fruit varieties would play the same way. And a schmear of Nutella leans into the sugared extreme, turning it all into dessert. Or go full throttle with some ice cream between layers, and you’ve got the carb-y equivalent of a handheld banana split.
