Vietnamese Banh Mi Sandwich Recipes

Here’s our collection of our family favorite Vietnamese banh mi sandwich recipes. Homemade is always fun to make because you can customize your fillings.

Vietnamese Banh Mi Sandwich Recipes

Too much of a good thing is certainly possible. Take for example, my favorite sandwich in the world, Vietnamese Banh Mi. But wait, before you blame me for being biased (you’re absolutely right anyways). Allow me to clarify a few things about my subjective love of this sandwich.

Yes, I’m Viet-Nam born, am Vietnamese at heart. I grew up eating banh mi for as long as I can remember when I started chewing solid foods. I often took this sandwich for granted as a grade school kid. Many times, I was embarrassed about taking it into my school lunch bag for fear of being sniffed out. As soon as this sandwich emerged from my bag, my classmates would pick up the aroma of pungent pickled daikon and carrots.

The pungent smell of pate and fish sauce laced pork loaf meat was quickly picked up by the rest of my peanut-butter-jelly clan of classmates. Noses would turn up, but not in a hateful way. It wasn’t often that fish sauce scented foods made way into an elementary school cafeteria. And pickled daikon was known to clear a room rather quickly.

Still, my humiliation radar turned on. The crusty french bread with fresh pickles, rich pate, flavorful pork meat and tender sprigs of cilantro had no value to me at all. This was not quality food, I kept thinking. This was just embarrassing.

I was wishing I had a ham and cheese sliced white bread sandwich instead. And oh, an Orange Capri Sun would have been nice. I never got Capri Suns in my lunch and wished I was with the cool kids sipping this astronaut looking drink bag. Instead, Mom snuck in a can of tofu milk instead. I’m going off on a tangent, but all this is another long, venting post.

Anyways, fast forward 10 years later in High School. My non-Vietnamese friends are bringing banh mi sandwiches to school that they picked up at the local banh mi shop. Suddenly, banh mi was super cool to have at lunch. The cool Senior bench had cheerleaders sharing a banh mi sandwich and the captain of the football team was sporting a grilled pork banh mi and shrimp chips. Here was the coolest white guy on campus eating a banh mi and I’m sporting a PB & J sandwich. There was something seriously WTF’d up with this picture.

Since then, I’ve found pride again in my native foods and every time I pulled out the white wrapped banh mi sandwich, everyone turns my way in envy, not with their noses turned up. I’m crunching on my fabulous banh mi sandwich with crumbs falling on my lap and with a big beam of pride while everyone around me is barely gnawing on their limp PB & J. Those bastards in my 3rd grade class were definitely losing out. I believe that now.

My menu now at parties normally have a banh mi platter filled to the brim with bite sized sandwiches. But as of late, I’ve been playing with more tapas, bite sized, open faced banh mi bites. I’m loving this because the fillings are exposed and the first bite is always terrific and full of the fresh, flavorful fillings. That’s how my fun parties are started with: tasty little banh mi bites.

Enjoy!

diane

Here’s a collection of all our awesome –> Vietnamese Banh Mi Sandwich Recipes!

Shredded Pork Banh Mi Bites Recipe

This photos you see is inspired from my standard braised Vietnamese pork banh mi recipe . The only difference is how it’s served. Rather than serving it in a closed sandwich style, I’ve served it bruschetta style. These smaller bites are fun and perfect appetizers for parties and gatherings. You can see from the images on this banh mi bites post on how I served and prepared the final look.

Grilled Chicken Banh Mi

Classic Vietnamese Banh Mi with Fried Egg 

Here’s more great international sandwich ideas!