A French Fast Food!
Pan bagnat or Pan bagna as it is sometimes called, is one of the most popular fast foods you can buy in the south of France. Although the term fast food conjures up images of unhealthy foods, this is, in fact, a truly tasty and healthy snack! This delicious food is really the equivalent of taking a hearty French salad recipe like Salade Niçoise or Salade Auvergnate and filling up a bun with it!
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❤️About This Recipe & Why We Love It
It consists of a crusty French roll, drenched in olive oil and packed with the fresh, healthy ingredients you would find in a traditional French salad, and believe me, it is truly wonderful.
- Take it with you: it is such a great snack to take along for picnic activities and outdoor games. You will often see the local French people eating them while playing a game of French boules or pétanque.
- Quick and easy: If you buy your buns or rolls at the grocery then all that is left to do is mix up a salad!
Top Tip
For this recipe, you will need to use it as a guide and vary it according to how many people you need it for and which variety of salad vegetables you have available.
🙌Variations
- If you don't like anchovies, you can use tuna instead or simply make a vegetarian version and leave out the fish and meat.
- For a lift in flavor that kids will love, prepare au jus sauce and dunk your beautiful sandwiches!
❄️How To Store Pan Bagnat For A Picnic?
Refrigeration: You can wrap them in cling film or foil and put them in the refrigerator overnight, and they will be ready for your picnic.
They seem to improve if left this way, as the bread becomes soaked with the olive oil, which is how they should be, as the name pan bagnat means wet bread! To some readers, especially those from North America, this may seem distasteful, but never pooh-pooh an unfamiliar dish unless you have tried it. Ooh-la-la!
Freezing: The bread if well wrapped with no filling, will keep fresh for months. This will make spur-of-the-moment plans easy!
Freezing the filling: (which is a salad) will not be successful, as the vegetables will be quite limp when thawed.
❔FAQ
Are you ready for this? In English it means "bathed bread". Why? The bun or roll is well-oiled before adding the filling.
Yes! Simply slice up the vegetables you love most, drizzle olive oil on the bread, and fill it up with veggies. Add pesto or any other sauce to dress it the way you like.
Petanque, pronounced "pay-tonk", one of Europe's most popular outdoor games, is a cousin of both horseshoes and of the Italian bowling game called 'bocce'. The game originated in the South of France in the early 1900's.
✨More French Recipes Like Fast Food
📖 Recipe
How To Make Pan Bagnat
Ingredients
- 4 bread rolls
- 2 tomatoes
- 4 radishes
- 1 green/yellow pepper
- 2 eggs hard-boiled
- 12 anchovy filets or 1 can of tuna
- 16 black olives
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 onion small
- 1 lemon
- olive oil
- salt
Instructions
- Slice the tomatoes, radish, and onions into thin rounds.
- Shell the hard-boiled eggs and cut them into rounds.
- Thinly slice the bell peppers into lengths.
- Slice olives into rounds.
- Dip the anchovies in freshwater to desalt them.
- Cut the bread rolls in half and remove the soft white middle from the centre of each half.
- Rub the inside with the garlic clove.
- Drench the inside with olive oil.
- Sprinkle lightly with salt.
- Finally, layer the inside of the bread roll with the sliced tomatoes, pepper, radish, onions, egg, olives, and finish with the anchovies.
- Drizzle with lemon juice and olive oil.
Did you make this & like it, or not, let us know?!