This decadent and over-the-top open-faced sandwich starts with thick sliced bread toasted and piled high with thinly sliced roasted turkey, tomato, and a creamy mornay sauce. It’s then broiled until the sauce is browned in spots and topped off with crispy bacon slices and a sprinkle of parsley. A Kentucky Hot Brown is indulgence personified. It’s a party of textures - the bacon provides crispness, the cheese sauce adds creaminess, you get tang from the lightly broiled tomato, and the toast is there to sop up all that extra sauce. If you need a side to pair with it, a simple salad will help balance out all the richness.
Kentucky Hot Brown History
During the Roaring Twenties the Brown Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky was regularly packed with revelers dancing the night away. In an effort to satisfy the famished guests, the hotel’s chef Fred Schmidt, created the Hot Brown to feed the hungry guests when the night came to a close. Today, tourists and locals alike can find the Kentucky Hot Brown on restaurant menus throughout Louisville.
Best Bread for a Kentucky Hot Brown
A traditional hot brown sandwich calls for Texas toast, a thick-cut square loaf of white bread. You can sometimes find it packaged in the bread aisle, but frequently its sold buttered and frozen in the freezer aisle. You don’t want the buttered frozen loaf. If you can’t find unbuttered Texas toast, then buy a Pullman’s loaf and slice it yourself, or just buy the thickest white bread you can find. You want it at least 3/4 inch thick. Trim the crust if you want to be authentic or leave it on if that’s your preference. Remember, this is a gussied up turkey sandwich so anything you would use for a turkey sandwich should be fine here.
Swaps and Substitutions
The Hot Brown has evolved into many forms throughout Kentucky, using all different types of breads, cheeses, and toppings. It’s one of those dishes you can easily personalize to your palate, or to whatever is in your fridge and pantry. The Pecorino Romano cheese can be substituted with:
Parmesan cheeseGruyereCheddar
Common Hot Brown variations:
Add slices of hamCut tomatoes into wedges and roast them on the sideTop with sautéed mushrooms
How to Make a Hot Brown for A Crowd
This open-faced sandwich is a relatively quick and easy meal to scale up for large crowds—you can double or triple the recipe if you need. Just make sure when you’re building the sandwiches, you make an assembly line to make the process go as smoothly as possible.
Arrange the toasted bread, spaced out in a single layer, on a foil-lined baking sheetTop the bread with sliced turkeyTop all the sliced turkey with tomatoesMake and spoon on the sauce over the top Broil and serve
Also be sure to have the bacon cooked, and the sandwiches layered before starting the cheese sauce which will make the final assembly a quick and easy process.
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4 slices bacon 4 thick slices Texas toast or white sandwich bread 10 ounces deli-sliced roast turkey 1 tomato 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt, optional 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, optional 1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh parsley, for garnish
For the cheese sauce
2 tablespoons unsalted butter 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1 cup whole milk, room temperature 1/2 cup heavy cream, room temperature 1/4 cup (1 ounce) grated Pecorino Romano 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Cook the bacon, until crispy and to your liking, rotating the pan halfway through cooking if necessary, and checking for doneness at about 12 minutes. Transfer bacon to a paper-towel lined plate to drain excess grease. On the remaining baking sheet place two slices of toast side by side in a single layer. Cut the other two slices of toast on a diagonal to form triangles and set those pieces aside. Cut four slices of tomato. Divide the turkey evenly between the slices of toast on the baking sheet. Top each stack of turkey with two slices of tomato. Season with salt and pepper. Slowly pour in the milk and cream, whisking constantly, until the mixture is smooth and thick, about 3 minutes. When you first start pouring in the liquid, it will look ugly and grainy. Don’t worry! It will calm down, come back together and smooth itself out once all of the liquid is whisked in. Spoon half of the sauce over each sandwich. Crisscross 2 slices of bacon over top each sandwich and garnish with parsley. Serve while still hot.
