Look at that beautiful thing! A glorious Cuban Sandwich filled with roast pork, crackling, ham, pickles, swiss cheese, and mustard, all on fresh Cuban Bread! Delicious! Sandwiches get me going, as you can probably tell, and this one is no exception. When it was decided I would be hosting another Ethnic Potluck for the Ayden Kitchen & Bar crew, I was given the country of Cuba. It was meant to be! For the last potluck, I received Vietnam, and made this delicious Banh Mi, so it was only appropriate I receive another country known for delicious sandwiches!
When looking at the ingredients alone, the Cuban sandwich is pretty simple, only five ingredients inside the sandwich, ham, cheese, pickles, mustard, and roast pork. Of course, with all things that are seemingly simple, and super delicious, there is more than meets the eye! To make a truly delicious Cuban sandwich, one must have delicious bread, and flavourful roast pork. Two things which take a little more effort than just whipping up a sandwich! If you wanna do this sandwich right, whip up some Cuban Bread first, then you can start on this recipe.
For this recipe, I have included the full roast pork recipe, but I have broken the rest down into a single sandwich, so if you are making several of these, just multiply the sandwich ingredients for how many you want to make.
Cuban Sandwich (Cubano)
Ingredients
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- Roast Pork Lechon Asado
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- 15 cloves garlic minced
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 cups orange juice
- 1 cup lemon juice
- 1 cup lime juice
- 1 cup onion chopped
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1 cup olive oil
- 2 pound boneless pork shoulder
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- Sandwich
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- 3-4 slices ham per sandwich
- 2-3 slices swiss cheese per sandwich
- 2-3 pickles sliced per sandwich
- 2 tbsp yellow mustard
- Shredded or cubed roast pork & crackling
- Cuban bread
- Butter
Instructions
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- Roast Pork
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- If your pork comes with the skin on, remove the skin, and rub it generously with salt, wrap in paper towel, and place on a plate in the fridge.
- Mix ingredients together in a large resealable bag. Add pork and let marinate overnight.
- Preheat oven to 325F, place pork, along with some marinade in a roasting dish. Cook until the pork reaches 155F, about 30 minutes per pound of pork.
- About 30 minutes before the pork is finished, remove the pork skin from the fridge, allowing it to come to room temperature.
- Once pork has finished roasting, raise oven temperature to 500F, and place pork skin on a roasting dish, lightly covered with tinfoil (to prevent splatter), and roast until skin turns into crackling (gets puffy, crisp and golden brown).
- Roughly chop up crackling and add to pork when placing on sandwich.
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- Sandwich
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- Slice bread in half, spread about a tablespoon of mustard on the inside of each side of bread.
- Place enough ham to cover the bottom slice, followed by the roast pork and crackling, then your pickles, followed by swiss cheese, and your top slice of bread.
- Get a pan on medium heat.
- Spread butter on the outside your sandwich.
- Grill the sandwich in your pan until golden brown on each side and cheese has melted. Using a flat surface, like the bottom of a baking dish, press down on the sandwich as it grills.
- Slice and enjoy!
Lechon Asado recipe derived from The Kitchn.
Now for those who are in the mood, go make a Cubano!
Bob
For some reason I’m always perplexed by pulled pork leftovers and can’t figure out why a Cubano never occurred to me. Having a “duh” moment. This looks like a fantastic recipe – thanks for the inspiration!
love a great cuban sammie!!
Now that is one nice looking cuban sandwich!
This is seriously just the best looking sandwich I have ever seen. It is definitely better than sandwich I have ever eaten! Great recipe and photography!
Thanks so much Thalia!