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one half of my grilled chicken sandwich with romesco sauce, dill havarti and arugula with romesco in the background

Grilled Chicken Sandwich with Romesco Sauce, Dill Havarti & Arugula

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  • Author: Stacey
  • Prep Time: 25 minutes
  • Cook Time: 15 minutes
  • Total Time: 40 minutes
  • Yield: 6 sandwiches 1x

Description

Fantastic marinated grilled chicken sandwich with homemade romesco sauce, dill havarti and arugula. Eat it hot or cold – it’s a gourmet.

Ingredients

Units Scale

*NOTE: time above does not include letting chicken marinate overnight.

Marinade for Chicken:

  • 1/4 of a large onion
  • 2 large cloves garlic
  • 1/2 bunch parsley
  • 1/2 bunch cilantro
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon
  • zest from one lemon
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1/2 cup olive oil, more if needed

Chicken

  • 3 boneless chicken breasts (sliced in half length-wise/6 pieces total)
  • salt and pepper

Romesco 

  • 2 12-ounce jars roasted red peppers
  • 3 cloves garlic, browned
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1 cup cubed bread (french or ciabatta)
  • 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
  • 3/4 cup almonds (I used marcona - see notes)
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt (more if needed)
  • 1/4 cup red wine vinegar

Bread & Cheese

  • 6 rolls (brioche rolls, ciabatta rolls, French bread all work well here)
  • Six slices of dill havarti cheese (see notes below)

Instructions

  1. The marinade: put all marinade ingredients in a mini food processor and blend. I do rough chop the onion and garlic before putting in the processor. Since I add Dijon here, I don’t put any salt in the marinade. If you taste it and think it needs a pinch you can go ahead and add. If the marinade is too thick you can thin it out with a little more olive oil. 
  2. The chicken: Take your chicken and slice it like you are butterflying it but run the knife to split the breast in two pieces. If you’re making the original recipe amount, the three boneless chicken breasts will give you 6 pieces of chicken for 6 sandwiches. Lightly salt and pepper both sides of the chicken pieces then poke with a fork. 
  3. Take all the chicken and put it in a Ziplock bag or large bowl. Pour the marinade in the bag and massage to coat all the pieces. Make sure all chicken is coated. Marinate for 4-6 hours or overnight. I usually do overnight. 
  4. The romesco sauce: First, heat garlic in a pan with oil until it’s browned – should take a few minutes. 
  5. While garlic is browning cut your bread in cubes. 
  6. When garlic is brown, set garlic aside and using the same olive oil fry your bread cubes until golden brown. 
  7. Put the roasted red peppers in your food processor. Add garlic, almonds, bread cubes and oil – BLEND. Take a taste and add your salt here if you used the already salted marcona almonds. Add your red wine vinegar here too. BLEND again. It's ready now.
  8. Grilling the chicken: I preheated my outdoor grill and let it get hot for 10-15 minutes on med to high heat. I grilled the chicken for about 6-7 minutes on each side until the chicken was cooked all the way through. UPDATE HERE: This timing is off slightly because when I made this I had an old crappy outdoor grill and now I have a new wonderful grill. Timing on these should be about 4-6 minutes on each side (lid closed). Your chicken may be bigger or smaller than mine.  Most important thing is the internal temperature of chicken should be 165 degrees before consuming.
  9. After the chicken is cooked, you’re ready to assemble your sandwiches. 
  10. While the chicken is resting a couple of minutes, you can slice the dill havarti cheese. In the video, you’ll see I’m slicing my dill Havarti right from a block of cheese. (see notes below for add'l info)
  11. Toast your brioche rolls right before assembling and serving.
  12. Put the chicken on your toasted brioche (or other high-quality roll – ciabatta or french bread works well too). Spread romesco sauce on top of roll. Add the sliced dill havarti. Add arugula and you’re ready to go! Enjoy!

Equipment

Notes

  1. Marcona almonds can be a bit pricey. They have no skins and are usually already salted. You can certainly use regular almonds as well. Since they are salted, I do wait to add the salt to my romesco until after I’ve blended the almonds in. 
  2. Store leftover romesco sauce in a sealed container and drizzle a little olive oil on top.
  3. The dill havarti cheese. They often do not have this at the deli counter of my local grocery store. However, they always have it in the special cheese section of the store with the goat cheese, fresh mozzarella, gruyere, etc. It is usually sold as a block of cheese so you will have to slice it yourself - you can see this in the video. I used a cheese slicer to slice off the havarti from the block of cheese.

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Find it online: https://eatthebite.com/grilled-chicken-sandwich-with-romesco-sauce-dill-havarti-arugula/