The Trick For Dealing With Slippery Sandwich Ingredients

Sandwich aficionados swear by certain rules: Keep your spreads away from the bread, use the right type of bread, and season the middle. What used to be the easiest lunch you could take on the go has now become complicated, and it is partly due to the issue of keeping it in one piece. Sure, the sandwich is made up of components that can withstand long hours at room temperature. Ingredients like cured ham, bread, and cheese can become soggy, or worse, the sandwich may completely fall apart when you take your first bite. The slippery sandwich is an issue that plagues Americans everywhere. The contents of the sandwich, especially when they've wilted into an unrecognizable heap, slip out of the other end of the sandwich, leaving you with a sad bread bite.

Even though assembling a sandwich may not be the most complicated task in the kitchen, as in all things in life, it follows the laws of physics. Friction isn't just a force that occurs when two rough surfaces meet; friction also keeps things in place and it is a crucial mechanism for keeping your sandwich in one piece (via Live Science). If sticking a toothpick in your sandwich is the last thing you want to do, there is a way to add more friction to your sandwich.

To prevent your sandwich from falling apart or perhaps giving you an odd number of bread bites, you must consider the order in which you assemble your ingredients. A standard sandwich usually has meat, cheese, some type of spread, lettuce, tomato, and sometimes pickles. Dan Pashman shares with NPR that wet and slick ingredients like tomatoes and cucumbers should be separated from one another by something more rough or dry like cheese or shredded lettuce. By keeping the wetter components apart, you won't run the risk of having the entirety of your sandwich slip out.

Textured ingredients like shredded lettuce or dry layers of cheese hold the integrity of the sandwich with friction. Friction is the magical invisible force that holds this gravity-defying mound of bread together. So the next time you make a sandwich, remember to alternate between wet vegetables with drier and more textured ingredients. Once you've managed to keep it in one piece, you can use this simple trick to keep your sandwich fresh for hours. Ready to graduate from the standard ham and cheese? Try to improve your normal sandwich with simple substitutions and quick tricks that will surely satisfy your midday hunger pangs.