Traveler Sandwiches with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

These sandwiches are built to travel. Sun-dried tomatoes, black olives, capers, anchovies, and watercress get packed into hollowed-out baguette sections, wrapped tight in foil, and hold up for six hours without refrigeration. That’s a picnic sandwich that means business.

The filling is essentially a Mediterranean tapenade on a baguette. Partially mashing the capers releases their briny juice into the mix, and the minced anchovies melt into the other ingredients, adding salty depth without any fishy taste. The oil reserved from the sun-dried tomatoes becomes the dressing base, so nothing goes to waste and the flavor stays concentrated.

Hollowing out the bread centers is the move that makes these work for travel. Those removed crumbs get mixed back into the filling, absorbing the dressing and acting like a binder so the filling doesn’t slide out when you unwrap and bite. The bread shell stays crusty on the outside.

Chef Tips

• Wrap tightly in foil and press gently. The compression helps all the flavors meld together as the sandwich sits, similar to a pressed muffuletta.
• Use oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, not the dry kind. The oil does double duty as both flavor and dressing.
• Peppery watercress is ideal here, but arugula makes a solid substitute if watercress is hard to find.
• Make these the night before a road trip. Six hours at room temperature is the sweet spot for flavor and food safety.

Variations

• Vegetarian version: Leave out the anchovies and add crumbled feta or shaved Parmesan for salty richness.
• Tuna traveler: Mix in a can of drained oil-packed tuna for a heartier, protein-packed filling.