Smoked Bologna Sandwich With Jalapeño Pimento Cheese

A bologna sandwich can be one of the saddest things in a lunchbox or one of the best things to come out of a skillet. The difference is usually how seriously somebody decided to take it.

This version starts with my Smoked Bologna With Pepper Bark and Mustard-Pickle Glaze, but the sandwich is its own thing. It is oversized, messy, rich and built more like a barbecue sandwich than a couple of slices of lunch meat on white bread.

Inspired by Jamil’s Senator Sandwich

The idea is influenced by the Senator’s Smoked Bologna Sandwich from Jamil’s Steakhouse in Oklahoma City.

Jamil’s is part of Oklahoma’s unusual Lebanese-steakhouse tradition, where smoked bologna could show up alongside rib tips, steaks, hummus, tabbouleh and cabbage rolls without anybody treating it like the cheap option. The Senator became especially well known for using roughly nine ounces of smoked bologna in a single sandwich. In 2012, Food Network Magazine selected it as the sandwich that represented Oklahoma.

That nine-ounce portion changes the way you think about the sandwich. This is not thin deli meat stacked high to create the illusion of substance. It is one thick piece of smoked bologna treated almost like a steak.

My version is not a recreation of Jamil’s sandwich. It borrows that oversized Oklahoma attitude and takes it in a more Southern direction with jalapeño pimento cheese, bacon and the mustard-pickle sauce from the smoked bologna recipe.

Why This Sandwich Works

Bologna brings plenty of salt, fat and smoke, so the rest of the sandwich has to keep it from becoming too heavy.

The jalapeño pimento cheese adds richness and a little heat, but the pickles, red onion and mustard-pickle sauce bring enough acidity to cut through it. Tomato and lettuce add some freshness, while the bacon gives the sandwich another layer of smoke and crunch.

The toppings are not there simply to make the sandwich taller. Each one keeps the bologna and pimento cheese from taking over the entire bite.

Choosing the Bread

A sandwich this heavy needs bread that can survive it.

A sturdy bun works well, but thick-cut white bread or Texas toast gives it more of an old-school fried bologna feel. Toasting the bread adds structure and keeps the sauce and tomato from immediately soaking through it.

This probably is not the place for a delicate artisan roll. The sandwich should still feel familiar, even if it weighs about as much as the lunchbox it used to come in.

The Kettle-Chip Question

Kettle chips make sense beside the sandwich, but putting a handful directly on it may be even better.

The chips add salt and crunch, but they also connect the sandwich back to the kind of bologna lunch people actually remember—the one packed with chips that were probably crushed before lunchtime anyway.

This is a much better sandwich than the one from your childhood, but it does not have to pretend it came from somewhere else.