Ingredients
The Base (Required)
The Italian Base Layer (Minimum, Non-Negotiable)
The Optional Extras
Instructions
- Make the focaccia. Use the Focaccia Bread recipe, or buy a decent slab. Do not build this on a hoagie roll or a baguette. This recipe is called The Focaccia Sandwich for a reason. If you skipped the bread step, at least buy a real bakery focaccia; the sad plastic-wrapped grocery kind is going to let everything else down.
- Crispy prosciutto. Lay the slices flat on a parchment-lined sheet pan, no overlap, and bake at 375°F for 8-10 minutes until the fat renders and the slices go stiff and cracker-crisp. Watch them — they go from perfect to charred in about 90 seconds, and burnt prosciutto tastes like regret. Pull them, drain on paper towel, and let them cool; they crisp up further as they sit.
- Grilled chicken (optional). Boneless skinless breasts, seasoned with salt, pepper, and olive oil. Grill medium-high 5-6 minutes per side, pulling at 165°F internal. Rest a couple minutes, then slice against the grain. This is the part I did. It took me eleven minutes. I get zero credit for the rest of the sandwich.
- Roast the tomatoes and garlic. Halve the cherry tomatoes, toss on a sheet pan with the whole peeled garlic cloves, olive oil, and kosher salt. 400°F for 20-25 minutes, until the tomatoes burst and collapse into little jammy pockets and the garlic goes soft, golden, and spreadable. See the callout below for why this is non-negotiable.
- Portion and split the bread. First, portion. If the slab is rectangular and long, halve it lengthwise first with one long cut down the middle, parallel to the long edges — you'll end up with two long strips. Then cross-cut those strips into 4-5 inch sections to make sandwich-sized rectangles. If the slab is roughly square, skip the lengthwise cut and just grid it directly into 4-5 inch squares. Whatever gets you even, sandwich-shaped portions. Then split each portion horizontally: cut each rectangle through the middle, parallel to the top and bottom crusts, like splitting an English muffin. You should end up with a top and a bottom, both showing crispy focaccia crust on the outside and soft airy crumb on the newly-cut inside faces. That is the sandwich shell.
- Assemble on the bottom halves. Tear the burrata over the bread — you want ragged pieces and creamy stracciatella oozing into the crumb, not neat little slices. Then sliced grilled chicken (if using), a spoonful of hot pepper jam (if using), a generous spoon of the roasted tomatoes and garlic (crush a garlic clove or two right onto the bread — it'll spread like butter), and finally the crispy prosciutto and optional bacon on top.
- Finish. Generous torn basil across the whole thing. Balsamic glaze drizzled back-and-forth like you are signing your name. Cap with the top halves of the bread. Cut diagonally if you are being polite.
- Serve immediately. Bread is best fresh, burrata is best at room temp, basil is best not-wilted, and this whole thing goes soggy if it sits. Assemble at eat time. See the callout — this is not a make-ahead sandwich.
Casey and Stephen Made This. I Grilled the Chicken.
To be perfectly clear about credit: my wife Casey and our friend Stephen took over lunch. They baked the focaccia from scratch, roasted the tomatoes and garlic, crisped the prosciutto, and laid out the burrata, the balsamic, and the hot pepper jam like they were catering an event. All I did was grill the chicken and pick the basil. That's the whole list. When your wife and your friend are making focaccia sandwiches on the counter, the correct move is to grill the chicken, pick the basil, and stay out of their way. Casey and Stephen also happen to be the team behind the Pear-jito, so consider this your official notice that any recipe on this site with their names on it is going to be worth making.
The Italian Base Layer (These Five, at Minimum)
Prosciutto, burrata, roasted tomatoes and garlic, basil, balsamic glaze. Skip any of those five and you have a different sandwich. Not a worse one necessarily, but a different one, and don't call it The Focaccia Sandwich. Everything else — grilled chicken, bacon, hot pepper jam — is a legitimate addition, not a requirement. The bread is the noun, but those five are the sentence.
Crispy Prosciutto (Technique, Not the Same Prosciutto)
Raw prosciutto on a sandwich is great; that is a different sandwich. On this one, the move is baking the slices flat on parchment at 375°F for 8-10 minutes until they crisp like bacon and shatter like a cracker. You get salty crunchy texture punching against the soft components — burrata, roasted tomatoes, fresh bread — and, bonus, crispy prosciutto stops trying to slide out of the sandwich in one long silky strip the moment you bite. Do NOT sub raw prosciutto here. The texture is the whole point.
Burrata, Not Fresh Mozzarella
Both are Italian, both sit in water at the deli counter, both are white and soft. They are not the same. Fresh mozzarella (see Italian Sandwich) is springy and milky and holds its shape when you slice it. Burrata is the softer, richer cousin: a mozzarella outer shell filled with cream and mozzarella curds (that filling has its own name — stracciatella). Tear it and it oozes. That ooze is what fills the pockety focaccia crumb and coats everything else on the sandwich. Fresh mozz is fine, but it is distinctly less rich and it does none of that oozing. Take the burrata.
Balsamic GLAZE, Not Vinegar
Same lecture as the Italian Sandwich: thick syrupy reduced balsamic glaze stays on the sandwich where you put it. Straight balsamic vinegar is thin and pungent and turns the bread into a wet sponge. You can buy glaze in a bottle (Casey used Aceto Balsamico di Modena IGP — the bottle in the photo) or you can reduce your own: pour plain balsamic into a small saucepan and simmer medium-low for about 10 minutes until it coats the back of a spoon. Do not use "balsamic dressing." Do not use sweet imitation glazes with corn syrup at the top of the ingredient list.
Roast the Tomatoes and Garlic. Don't Use Them Raw.
Raw cherry tomatoes on this sandwich are wet, sour, and they will not stay put. Roasted cherry tomatoes are sweeter, concentrated, jammy, and the juices reduce enough to actually behave themselves. Same story for the garlic: raw garlic on a sandwich this delicate is a hostage situation; roasted garlic is mellow, creamy, and spreads like butter across the bread. 20-25 minutes at 400°F with olive oil and salt. This is not the step to skip.
Hot Pepper Jam (Optional, But Recommended)
The jar in the photo is Marcella Gourmet Hot Pepper Jam — any decent hot pepper jelly does the job. You get sweet slow-building heat against the salty prosciutto and the creamy burrata, and it turns the whole sandwich from "really nice" into "I need another one." Grocery jam aisle or the specialty cheese section. Not required, but nice.
This Sandwich Doesn't Wait
Focaccia is at its best fresh. Burrata is at its best at room temp. Basil wilts the second you tear it. Balsamic glaze soaks into bread over time. Pre-assembled focaccia sandwiches in the fridge become sad, soggy versions of themselves inside an hour. Prep the components ahead if you have to — roast the tomatoes, crisp the prosciutto, grill the chicken — then assemble at eat time. This is not a picnic sandwich. This is a plate-and-eat sandwich.