This veggie sandwich is crispy, crunchy, creamy and chock full of delicious and simple ingredients to keep you full and satisfied with each and every bite. A great plant based meal, inspired by the Mediterranean Diet.
What Does Plant Based Mean?
Since this term gets used a lot lately, we wrote up a post all about it a few months ago….
What does Eating a Plant Based Diet Mean?
In the post, we fill you in on what plant based means, dispel some myths about it and discuss all the potential health benefits with adding more plants to your diet.
In a nutshell, we talk about how the Mediterranean diet focuses on increasing plants (veggies, fruits, whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes) in your meals. The benefits being lower risk of heart disease, certain cancers, diabetes and more.
Creating the Ultimate Veggie Sandwich
Whenever I made a meatless sandwich my husband always looked at me like I was crazy. He is definitely a fan of sandwiches filled with layers and layers of lunch meat. However, when I first started making these veggie sandwiches, he quickly became a HUGE fan.
My tips for creating the best sandwich without meat include –
- Starting with really good bread. A whole grain bread will give you more fiber, which will fill you up and keep you fuller longer.
- Due to some medical issues, I’ve recently started following a gluten free diet and have found this Canyon Bakehouse brand to be the best I’ve tried so far
- Add different textures
- You need a mixture of crispy, creamy, crunchy and soft to really make a great sandwich
- Think outside of the standard lettuce and tomato and get creative with sprouts, different leafy greens, cucumbers, bell peppers, avocado, tomato, pickles, red onion, radish, eggplant, roasted veggies, etc
Adding Protein and Fiber with Hummus
One of my tricks for adding not only great flavor but extra protein and fiber is to use hummus instead of mustard or mayo on the bread.
Just 2 tablespoons of hummus provides approximately 1 gram of fiber and 2 grams of protein. Plus it’s plant based and fits in with the Mediterranean Diet.
This may not seem like a lot but compared to mustard and mayo, it adds up –
**please note these are estimations and that products and brands may differ slightly. Based on serving size of 2 tbsp
All Hummus in Not Created Equal
There are so many store bought hummus brands and flavors available on the market. We hope to pull together a post soon devoted entirely to hummus. In the meantime, we wanted to share a few tips on buying hummus.
Make sure you check the ingredient list to see what the hummus is made with and try to find one with the most natural ingredients possible. There are many that have a lot of preservatives, additives or even oils other than olive oil as the main ingredients.
Two of our personal favorite brands of hummus to buy are –
PS it’s also delicious and not too complicated to make your own hummus at home. It’s so creamy and beats any store bought hummus we’ve tried yet.
The Ultimate Green Veggie Sandwich with Hummus
Ingredients
- 2 slices Whole Grain Bread
- 2 tbsp Hummus
- 2 tbsp Sprouts
- 1/4 cup Arugula (or leafy green of your choice)
- 1/4 Cucumber, thinly sliced
- 1 slice Cheese (we used havarti)
- 1/2 Avocado, thinly sliced
Instructions
- Spread hummus on one side of bread, then layer with arugula, sprouts, cucumber, cheese and avocado. Place remaining slice of bread on top.