You may have had corned beef sandwiches at your favorite deli and can’t stop going back for it ever since.
What if you could prepare the corned beef sandwiches yourself? And no, it isn’t that hard to cook corned beef sandwiches. And if you are wondering whether the corned beef sandwiches you prepare will taste like the one at the deli, they’ll taste amazing, or even better than the one at the deli.
But it isn’t a walk in the park either. With these recipes below, together with your creativity you should be able to cook yourself delicious corned beef sandwiches in no time.
We’ll start by first getting to know how to cook corned beef for sandwiches.
1. Corned beef recipes for sandwiches.
Corned beef generally is very tough.
They are often sold raw or precooked.
If you bought the corned beef raw, there are 3 common ways on how to cook corned beef.
- Boiling.
- Baking.
- Cooking in the slow cooker.
Baking corned beef for sandwiches.
Procedure.
- Preheat your oven to around 350oF.
- As the oven heats up, put the corned beef in a fairly sized pot. Fill the pot with water and bring the pot of water to boil. Once the water boils, pour it and repeat this procedure one more time.
- Line a baking pan with aluminum foil. Lightly coat the foil with cooking spray or vegetable oil (preferably one that has a high smoke point i.e. Canola oil)
- Place the corned beef on the baking pan, fat-side up then cover with aluminum foil. Let the corned beef bake for 2 hours.
- Once the 2 hours are up, remove the foil covering the corned beef and coat the beef with some mustard, before putting it back in the oven.
- This time use the oven rack. It should be set in the top third in the oven. Let the corned beef bake for 30 more minutes, or until the top becomes crispy and turns golden brown
Cooking corned beef for sandwiches in the slow cooker.
This is hands down the easiest way to cook corned beef for sandwiches. You might say it’s similar to boiling, and you are right but using a slow cooker, there is no need to always check on the beef that’s cooking.
Procedure.
- Put one diced onion, some garlic cloves and some other vegetables you may wish to add.
- Add the corned beef in the slow cooker and sprinkle with some spice.
- Pour in 2 bottles of beer into the slow cooker and top with water. The water should be just enough to cover the corned beef.
- Cover the slow cooker and set the heat to high.
- Let it cook until it boils.
- Once it boils, turn the heat to medium low and let it cook for 4-6 hours.
- Check once in a while, adding water as necessary to cover the beef.
- Once the corned beef is properly cooked, carefully take out the beef from the slow cooker and let it rest for a while.
- Slice the corned beef and serve with the sandwich together with coleslaw or any other fresh salad. Enjoy
When using aluminum foil in the oven, it is best to go for heavy duty aluminum foil.
Use 2 bottles of beer, each 12 fluid ounces.
And just to make it clear, using beer instead of water, just serves to give the beef a more complex, full flavored taste. However, if you do not wish to use beer, substitute it with plain water.
Read more about cooking meat with a slow cooker here.
Boiling corned beef for sandwiches.
Procedure.
- Put the corned beef in a fairly large cooking pot.
- Add water to the cooking pot. It should be enough to cover the corned beef completely.
- Heat the pot on medium high heat.
- Add sliced carrots, diced onions, crushed garlic cloves and maybe a few celery stalks.
- Add spices of your choice to the pot and stir. If you have pickling spice, then please add it to the pot.
- Bring the pot to boil, then turn the heat to medium low.
- Let the meat cook for 3-4 hours. Or at least until the beef becomes tender.
- Poke the cooked beef with a fork. If it is tender, turn off the heat and remove the beef from the pot.
- Let the beef rest for 10 minutes.
- Serve and enjoy
If you wish to cook some more vegetables alongside the corned beef, some 30 minutes before the beef is properly cooked, add potatoes and cabbages.
The cabbages should be in wedges to avoid overcooking the cabbage.
2. Irish corned beef sandwich with pickles.
You can use deli precooked or homemade corned beef for the sandwich. Just make sure the corned beef is tender.
Procedure.
- In a fairly sized bowl, add caster sugar and vinegar (4 tablespoons each). Stir until the sugar completely dissolves in the vinegar.
- Add ½ a tablespoon salt, cucumber and a shallot. They should both the be sliced into thin slices.
- Cover the bowl, and let it rest in a refrigerator for 2-3 hours. The more it stays in the fridge the better, so it is best prepared much earlier in advance, like a day before.
- Evenly coat each side of the bread with butter.
- Use a condiment, like mustard and spread it copiously on one side of the rye bread.
- Top 4 of the bread slices with corned beef, cheese and sandwich
- Using a large non-stick skillet, fry the sandwiches using butter.
- Once the sandwiches turn golden brown, and the cheese melts, remove the sandwiches from the pan.
- Slice the sandwiches and serve with pickles.
Conclusion.
That is all about how to cook corned beef for sandwiches. And if you were wondering about the condiment to use with your corned beef, the best suggestion would be to use mustard. You can never go wrong with it.
Can you freeze a lunch meat? Find out here.