Meals in Minutes Try Melted Sandwiches

Meals in minutes—that's the answer to those busy days. Add "melted" sandwiches to your arsenal of answers. They are quick and they are good. You can vary them to match your mood or your family's tastes. If you have company coming, make several kinds and serve a platter of mixed sandwiches—without investing a lot of time. Each is made with toasted English muffins, spread with a filling, and topped with cheese. The sandwiches are cooked for about five minutes under the broiler element, the top element in your oven, until the cheese melts.

Melted Sandwich #1. Crispy Crab Sandwich

Crab and cheddar sandwiches are always popular but you can make them really quickly and easily with your favorite crab salad from the deli. You'll need some English muffins and sliced deli cheese. You'll have great melted sandwiches ready go in ten minutes or less. Here's how:

1. Toast the English muffins.
2. Load each with the crab salad. Top each with a slice of cheddar cheese.
3. Put your sandwiches on a baking sheet and slide it under the broiler element in your oven. Cook them for about five minutes or until the cheese melts. Serve them hot.

Melted Sandwich #2. Pulled Chicken and Cheese

When we think of pulled pork, we think of the Carolinas and great BBQ restaurants. These are made with chicken instead of pork. If you pick a good barbecue sauce, they will be great and though they do take longer make, they only have three ingredients. This recipe will make four sandwiches.

1 chicken breast
1/2 large sweet onion, sliced
3/4 cup barbecue sauce

Sauté the chicken breast in a skillet. Let the chicken cool. While it is cooling, sauté the onion in the same pan.

Using your fingers and a fork, pull the chicken breast part into strands. Return the chicken to the pan with the onions. Add the barbecue sauce and stir.

Now that the filling is complete, you can assemble and cook the sandwiches as before. We topped the chicken filling with provolone cheese.

Melted Sandwich #3. Chicken Salad and Cheddar

You can make your own chicken salad, but for convenience, stop at the deli for this salad also. Once the salad is made, assemble the sandwiches and prepare them as for the crab sandwiches. Consider mozzarella or cheddar for the cheese topping.

Of course you can make exactly the same sandwiches with tuna salad or a canned salmon salad.

Melted Sandwich #4. California Turkey, Bacon, and Avocado

So far, we have created fillings for our sandwiches. Now we will use sliced sandwich components. You can use whatever you like. But this is very good.

Spread your English muffins with a little mayonnaise or butter and then layer the sandwiches with turkey slices. Top the turkey with crisp bacon, sliced avocados, and then tomato slices. Add a slice or two of cheese and broil until the cheese is bubbly.

Melted Sandwich #5. Rueben's Melt

This is a take on a Rueben sandwich. Spread the toasted muffin with thousand island dressing. Top that with a couple layers of thinly sliced corn beef from the deli. Spread a spoonful of sauerkraut over that. Top it with sliced Swiss cheese and broil.

We found this sandwich a little overwhelming if we didn't keep the toppings sparse. It was very good with a just a couple layers of roast beef and single spoon of sauerkraut spread evenly over the meat.

Melted Sandwich #6. Summer Tomato, Fresh Basil, and Mozzarella

This a classic summer combination when the tomatoes are ripe and fresh basil is available. Since this is a meatless sandwich, you'll probably want extra cheese.

Put a little butter or mayonnaise on your toasted English muffins so that the juice from the tomatoes does not soak as readily into the bread. Layer tomato, then fresh basil, then cheese onto the muffin. Broil until bubbly.

To Make or to Buy

You'll make great sandwiches with store-bought muffins but homemade always seems a little better . . . and satisfying. English muffins may be the easiest yeast bread to make, not much more trouble than pancakes. You do have to wait 40 minutes for the yeast to work and you do have to use English muffin rings to contain the batter. Other than that, it's pretty much like cooking pancakes. Because they are thicker, they take a little longer on the grill.