Antipasto Melts

Edith’s antipasto melt sandwich, a runner up in our Creative Sandwiches contest, takes the best of an antipasto platter and turns it into a robust, open-faced sandwich. Crusty, chewy peasant-style bread serves as the base for briny olive tapenade, two kinds of deli meat, and both provolone and mozzarella cheeses. When we made Edith’s sandwich, this is what we discovered:

Test Kitchen Discoveries

• Toast the bread before layering the sandwich so that the bread is sturdy enough to support all the layers of ingredients.
• Black olive tapenade is a potently flavored olive paste available in the gourmet aisles of most supermarkets. Add olive oil to the paste to make it thin enough to spread in a thin, even layer across each thick slice of bread.
• Make sure to slice the onion as thin as possible; otherwise its potent flavor will overpower the other ingredients.