🧡Copycat Panera Bread Inspired Frontega Chicken Panini🧡

This is one sandwich that I really am glad that I decided to recreate. I was tentative about the process and almost didn’t follow through because I did not want to end up disappointed. I must say, 100% satisfaction. This imitation of Panera Bread’s panini is spot on.

The best part about this recipe is that you are more than welcome to control the heat of your chipotle mayo to your heart’s content. I prefer my food a bit on the spicier side, but for this sandwich I did do my best to achieve the proper ratio of pepper to mayo as Panera would serve.

Conducting research for this sandwich was pretty simple, I have a pretty good memory so I mainly based my sandwich off of that, although I did Google a photo of the original panini.

Thanks to COVID-19, I couldn’t use the fancy shmancy focaccia bread that I desired. However, I was able to snag up a similar style/flavor/texture knockoff from where I work at to use and it worked out pretty great. Don’t get too worked up about the bread for this sandwich because the flavor really comes from what is inside, anyways. Here’s the recipe:

Chipotle Mayo:

1/4 Cup of Chipotle in Adobo

1 Cup of Vegan Mayo

1/2 Tsp of Lemon Juice

All you need to do with these ingredients to concoct your beautiful Chipotle Mayo is place them in a food processor and blend until it’s nice and creamy. Feel free to add more chipotles if you would like, but the measurement I recommended will give you a similar-to-Panera ratio.

Spread the mayo all over your bread.

Slice up some tomato, fresh basil, and red onions. Pile them nicely on your sandwich. I got a good laugh and learned a little something about myself when I decided to eat the red onions. I normally do NOT under any circumstance like red onions. I almost always substitute them for yellow onions. However, when I used to order this sandwich I would never ask for them to remove the onions, I liked them to be cooked in and I would remove them myself so I could get the flavor without the icky crunch and overwhelming stench. I decided to slice my onions thin and take a bite of the sandwich before removing the onions so that I could truly try the sandwich fully. WELL, I didn’t even end up removing the onions. They were a wonderful flavor addition. I guess I’m growing up? ANYWAY.

Chicken & Cheese:

1 Bag of defrosted Gardein Chick’n Strips

Salt and Pepper (as you wish)

1 Cup of Daiya Cutting Board Mozzarella

1 Cup of Plant Milk

Cook the Chick’n Strips as directed on the package. Personally, I crumbled them up in the bag and added salt and freshly ground black pepper and gave it a nice shake, threw the contents into a pan with some olive oil and cooked for a few minutes until they looked rejuvenated.

The cheese component is a basic melty sauce. Add the milk, cheese, and black pepper to a sauce pan and cook on medium-low heat until it becomes thick. Be patient with the sauce, you don’t want it to burn.

Place the cooked chick’n onto your layered sandwich and douse it in cheese sauce.

If if you have a grill or panini press, throw your sandwich on there until you get those yummy marks. I used a little olive oil on the bread crust to give it a bit more flavor. If you don’t have a press of some sort, you could throw it in the oven or toaster oven to give it a little color and warmth. Either way, it’s going to be TASTY.