The Easiest Way To Beef Up Your Cuban Sandwich (Literally)

The Cubano is one of the world's most perfect combinations of meat, cheese, vegetables, and bread. Typically built with both sliced ham and slow-roasted pork, Swiss cheese, dill pickles, yellow mustard, and Cuban bread, the whole stack is pressed to melt and meld it all together. The Cuban sandwich is rich, crunchy, creamy, salty, and satisfying. Although one may tinker with tips for perfecting the Cuban sandwich, its classic composition simply offers little room for improvement. But this winning flavor combination does lend itself to other dishes.

Burgers simply seasoned with just two ingredients are a beautiful blank canvas for a little Cubano treatment. Now, even a cloak of Swiss cheese, a layer of sliced dills, a twirl of yellow mustard, and a sesame seed bun won't exactly have your guests making the culinary connection on their own observations alone, though there certainly won't be any complaints about the taste. Proper Cuban bread sliced from the loaf to fit the ground beef patties and grilled further to crisp up its exterior perfectly signals the Cubano-inspired aesthetic and texture. But to really hammer the point home, you'll want to start mixing your meats.

Piling sliced ham and roasted pork right on top of your burger patty would certainly be an ambitious choice, but you might want to keep things a little more subtle for something like a casual afternoon cookout. Even a modest portion of swine shoulder threatens to overwhelm. Adding ground pork to your burger blend will bring in a bit of its unique flavor, but it'll also be a blink-and-you'll-miss-it type of taste. Stay in the sliced ham lane, instead, to merge the notion of the Cubano with your burgers.

You can simply top your Cuban sandwich burgers with a few thin slices of the everyday deli stuff for an intentional, polished effect. But more substantial ham steaks, which come pre-cooked at most supermarkets, make for a meatier bite. Give them a few good grill marks or heat them in a skillet, top your patties, and cover them with the Swiss to melt before loading them into Cuban bread with mustard and pickles. A good press with a spatula on each side of the sandwich will better squeeze everything together and create that toasted finish that the Cuban sandwich is known for.