French Bread Sandwich

For this recipe, I was mostly interested in the dressing for the lettuce, and I thought it was really good and worth saving here on the blog. You can, of course, top your sandwich with any combination of meats, cheeses and veggies that you like. The inspiration for this is a classic Grinder Sandwich, but I am not a big pepperoncini or red onion fan, so mine was more of an Italian sandwich instead. Enjoy!

French Bread Sandwich

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of mayo
• 2 TBSP of red wine vinegar
• 1/2 tsp of salt 
• 1 tsp of dried oregano, Italian seasoning, and garlic powder 
• 1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes
• 1/3 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese 
• 8 oz shredded iceberg lettuce 
• Sandwich bread
• Ham
• Salami
• Pepperoni 
• Provolone 
• 1 lb bacon, cooked 
• Sliced tomato 
• Optionally, for a more classic Grinder Sandwich, add 1/3 cup pepperoncinis peppers drained, and 1/2 of a red onion thinly sliced to your lettuce mixture in step 2.

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, mix together mayo, red wine vinegar, salt, oregano, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, and red pepper flakes. Stir well. 
2. Add 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese and shredded lettuce to the dressing you just made. Stir everything together well and let sit while you make the sandwiches. 
3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Layout bread and add a couple of slices of provolone cheese to each one. Top with lunch meat of your choice. Bake for a few minutes until the cheese is melted. 
4. Top with more Parmesan cheese and the cooked bacon. Add slices of tomato that have been seasoned with salt and pepper. Top sandwiches with grinder salad mixture.

Marsha's Notes:

I used this method to easily cook an entire package of bacon for this sandwich (I didn't put the entire package on the sandwich. We saved about 1/3 of the package to use for other things.): https://1brother2sisters.blogspot.com/2025/10/bacon-in-oven.html

Once made, I am not a fan of saving leftovers of this sandwich because the lettuce is already dressed and gets soggy (the bread can too from the lettuce), so either eat the entire thing, or else only make up enough lettuce mixture to top the portion of the sandwich you are immediately going to eat.