A Great French Dip Sandwich is MUCH Easier Than You Think

In this video, I'm gonna show you my well-tested recipe for a French dip sandwich. I've opted to keep this process as simple as possible so you guys get a high payoff without all-day prep. The final result is melty, a little bit crisp, and saturated with a delicious 10-minute beef stew that uses a few clever shortcuts to trick you into thinking that it was slow-cooked all day. The first thing I'm gonna start on this sandwich is making some caramelized onions. For that, I've got just about 1,000 grams of julienned onion here. To get 1,000 grams, you need two very, very big onions or three large onions. So into the pot they go. Then I'm gonna snug in 50 grams of butter so that it melts. Then I'll add in 50 grams of water and a nice, solid pinch of salt to draw out some moisture. In total, we're probably looking at like eight grams of salt for 1,000 grams of onions. Then I'm just gonna jump in and get everything stirred to combine and then make sure that the butter is in contact with the pan so it just melts a little bit faster. From here, I'm just gonna pop on a lid, then set up the heat to about medium and cook these covered for about 10 to 15 minutes. This just kind of jumpstarts the cooking process overall and shaves about 15 to 20 minutes off the overall process. Without the lid, you get a ton of evaporation. You don't really get enough heat concentration and it just ends up taking a long time. And after 10 minutes over medium-high heat, you can see the onions have mostly collapsed. All of them are nice and soft and now they're primed for caramelization. From here, I'm gonna turn the heat down to about three or four out of 10 and cook this over medium-low heat for about 45 more minutes, stirring it pretty constantly. Now, I know a lot of people are thinking to themselves, that seems like such a stupid amount of time to spend on a condiment that we're gonna be putting on a sandwich and it kind of is, but I will say this. This process is fun and it's a very worthwhile technique to learn because it's very useful for other dishes like French onion soup or other kinds of sauces and stuff. And the results are very worth it. Caramelized onions just have this very unique, very special flavor that you can only get by very slowly caramelizing the sugars in a pot like this. I know you guys have probably seen caramelized onions at the store before and wonder, hmm, I wonder if those are good. They're not. They're basically onions that have been cooked slightly more than the ones that are in the pot here and maybe they have some caramel coloring added to them or something. And they basically have nothing in common with the onions that we're gonna be making here. Now, to make this process a little bit more worth it, I would recommend maybe making a double batch. It is gonna add about 10 more minutes to the process so you're cooking onions for like maybe 55 minutes in total. But that way you'll have extra onions to use for that French onion dip or putting on top of a steak or just making French dips for many weeks to come. Now, I know most people aren't gonna be down for a 45 minute onion expedition and that's fine. So here is a little bit of a shortcut that will do a turn. Basically take about 250 grams of onions, julienne them and then take your largest saute pan, fill it with maybe two tablespoons of oil, onions in, strong pinch of salt, then toss, toss, toss and saute for about five to 10 minutes to get some really hard color on the onions and to soften them up a little bit. That will give you the sweetness that we're looking for here and the tenderness that you need for the onions to kind of blend into the sandwich. Now, disclaimer, it's not gonna be caramelized onions for sure. It's gonna be well short of that, but it will still have that onion-y sweet thing that we're looking for and it'll be pretty good. And after five minutes, you can see that we've got some caramelization building up on the bottom of the Dutch oven here and the onions are looking nice and melty. So I'm gonna take about a quarter cup of water, maybe three, four tablespoons, add that in, come back with my wooden spoon and just scrape it up to get it off the bottom of the pot and into the onions. I prefer a wooden spoon for this just because it has kind of a sharper edge, which helps with scraping. I really wouldn't recommend using a rubber spatula. It's just really not gonna do the job. And then from here, we're basically gonna repeat this process another dozen times or so over the next 30 minutes, keeping an eye on it the whole time. You really can't walk away just because these can go from perfectly caramelized to bitter and burnt relatively quickly. For people who love cooking, I just think this can be such a fun process. If you're not the type of person that gets joy from standing and stirring, you might wanna not do it. But think about yourself putting on a good record, hanging out with a friend, drinking a glass of wine and kind of just shooting the ---- while you're stirring. That seems fun and kind of like a pleasure. Find an excuse to do it. The results are very worth it. And after about 25 minutes, you can see we've got this nice golden brown color developing, I'd call that khaki or chestnut brown. If your onions are nowhere close to this after 25 minutes, you actually probably wanna turn your heat up a little bit. Also, if you're willing to stand and stir for 20 minutes straight, you can speed run this entire process in about 20 to 25 minutes, but it needs 100% of your attention the entire time. And the risk of things getting burnt and bitter is a little bit higher. So I like to spread it out over 40 to 50 minutes just to make it a little bit more luxurious. So from here, I'm just gonna cook these for probably another 10 to 15 minutes, which is gonna be another three to four deglazings. And after just about 40 to 45 minutes, I'm gonna call these good. You can see we've got a really deep golden brown color. Things are smelling super sweet. It's really well caramelized. This is probably about 20% shy of where I would take it for a French onion soup where you really want that super dark color and hyper sweetness, but I don't want these onions to dominate the sandwich. They're there as a condiment, let's keep that in mind. So I don't really think we need to take them much further than this. So from here, I'm just gonna flip these into a bowl to cool them down. In total, it makes just over two cups of caramelized onions, which is about double what we need. So I would probably freeze half of this for future sandwiches or some sick-ass caramelized onion dip. Next, we need to make the dip part of this French dip, also known as beef jus. So to do that, I'm gonna start with one box of store-bought beef stock, which is approximately 900 grams. Then I'm gonna add in two packets of powdered gelatin, 30 grams of Better Than Bouillon beef base, then 50 grams of Worcestershire and five grams of salt. That salt is just a starting point, by the way. We're gonna need to come back and taste this later on to make sure that it's nice and sparkly. From here, I'm gonna turn the heat on and then instantly whisk it so that the gelatin gets dissolved. You definitely wanna make sure that that's getting combined before the stock gets hot. Otherwise, it's gonna seize up and create a little jello raft on top that you're not gonna be able to whisk out. From here, I'm just gonna bring this up to a simmer and then reduce it by about 30 to 40%. Now, I've been using this combination of gelatin and bouillon for a long time to kind of approximate restaurant stock because, in my opinion, store-bought beef stock is not a very good product. What I like about it is that it has that brown color, so it kind of looks the part, and it has some mirepoix flavor from the onions and celery and carrot that they boil at some point in the process, but it doesn't taste like beef. We all know that. So the bouillon brings you the beef flavor and it helps you avoid having to source and buy beef bones and then roast them and cook them all day. And then the gelatin brings just a little bit of body and viscosity that you would get from a really slow-simmered stock that helps the jus grip the beef a little bit so you get more jus transfer from the pot to the final sandwich. While that cooks, I quickly wanna thank Made In for sponsoring this vid. If somehow you haven't heard of them before, Made In makes professional-quality cookware and other kitchen items for home cooks. In this case, when I say professional, this isn't just some empty marketing speak aimed at manipulating you. It's actually true. Made In's products are used in thousands of professional restaurant kitchens, including multiple three Michelin star restaurants. And just anecdotally, I wanna say that when I was cooking at the Michelin level professionally myself, the pans that I was using were not as good as this. And we were not using cheap pants. This is honestly just a very good product. I especially like the saucier that I'm using to cook the beef shoe in this video because the shape is just wonderful. It's wide enough to reduce sauces quickly and the curved sides on the inner edge make it really easy to whisk in butter or to stir up aromatics that you're sauteing. This saucier, and actually all of the other stainless products in Made In's stainless line are made from a five-ply stainless material that holds heat super well and transfers heat incredibly well to food. And all this stuff can go from the stovetop to the oven up to 800F, which is basically as hot as a Neapolitan pizza oven, which is insanely hot. I also love that their stainless steel pans have this rolled rim, which just makes pouring sauces onto foods directly from the pan super easy. So if you wanna check out Made In's stainless collection, or if you wanna browse all of the other types of cookware products that they have available, click the link in my description and you'll save some money on your order. Thank you, Made In. And after about 10 minutes of reduction, you can see we've lost about 30 to 40%. Things are looking a little bit more viscous. And so now to call it done, I'm gonna give it a little taste. Ooh, yeah, that's some flavorful beef juice. The wort really comes through, which I like. It brings a little bit of sweetness and just this base layer of umami that takes it just from beef only to something that's a little bit more interesting. From here, I wanna let this cool down to about 140F so that it doesn't immediately overcook the roast beef when I go to build the sandwich. Next, I wanna pull together a very simple, very quick horsey sauce. For that, I'm gonna combine 75 grams of nice tasting mayo with 75 grams of sour cream, then 50 grams of prepared horseradish, and three grams of salt. From here, I'm just gonna stir that to combine. And that is literally it. This is just a very quick, simple sauce that plays a pretty important role in this sandwich. It brings some heat and zippiness to make things more interesting. It also brings a little bit of acidity that helps balance out the fat from the cheese. But most importantly, by far, it helps glue the roast beef to the top part of the sandwich. For me, the structural integrity of a sandwich or the theory behind how to build one so that it stays together is a very underappreciated art. So today, I'm gonna show you how to build this sandwich in a way that actually keeps it held together. Speaking of sandwich, I quickly wanna grab the rest of the stuff that I need and talk about the products because they make a very big impact on the outcome of this sandwich. First of all, let's talk about the bread. What I'm using here is standard issue, dumb grocery store hoagie bread. I know a lot of people are gonna be thinking out there that it would be better to go to an artisanal bakery and get a crusty baguette for something like this, but it's not. Let me explain why. Those baguettes or ciabattas or whatever are super crusty and crunchy on the outside, but you gotta keep in mind, we're gonna be melting cheese on this sandwich. So when we refire it, it's gonna get even crispier and more glassy. And then when you go to take the final bite, it's gonna totally tear up your mouth and just distract from the soft juiciness that this sandwich is supposed to inhabit. And then the second thing is that those more artisanal breads have this open crumb structure, which doesn't really soak up jus particularly well. And then when you build the final sandwich, it just tends to fall apart. So I would just get hoagies from the fresh bakery section of your regular commodity grocery store. Avoid the bread in the bread aisle because that stuff is really heavily processed and it tends to have a lot more bite to it. This stuff is super soft. Also, there's a textural thing that happens with this kind of bread that I wanna clarify to you guys, which is really, really special. When you put cheese on this and refire it in the oven, the outside gets this very thin, brittle crispiness that doesn't exist on any other type of bread. And it is the perfect textural counterpoint to the soggy soft bread that you get once you dip the sandwich. It's really, really sick. So make sure you get these. And then the other thing that I wanna talk about here is the roast beef. This is basically what I would consider to be premium roast beef from the more expensive end of the deli container. You know how there's kind of tiers to it? There's the stuff that's like $3.99 and the stuff that's $10.99. This is the $10.99 stuff. And more specifically, it is the Dietzen-Watson brand London broil. I would also go with like a boar's head would be another example. Now, and the reason that I'm using it is that not only is it cooked mid-rare, so it's gonna have some nice beef flavor, it's just got a good seasoning on the outside and it has a meat-like texture. The stuff at the cheaper end of the deli case just has this bounciness to it that I really hate. It's kind of like a lunch meat texture. It's usually cooked well done and it usually doesn't have any beef flavor. So I would really try and avoid it if you can. Now, if you're wondering about trying to cook this whole roast beef thing from scratch, you certainly can, but I don't really think it's worth it. Not only because it's expensive, it takes a long time and you have to make way more roast beef than you need. Also, you probably don't have a knife sharp enough or knife skills good enough to slice this thin enough for it to show up on a sandwich in a way that is pleasurable and tender. So I really wouldn't recommend it. Now to build this sandwich, I'm gonna cut my hoagie roll by removing the rounded tip parts. Then I'm gonna cut it in half into two six or seven inch pieces. Then I'm gonna cut that in half all the way through. Some people will leave a little hinge on the edge of the sandwich to try and get things contained, but I think that usually leads to sandwich failure. So I'm not a big fan of it. Then I'm gonna put these sides back together and I'm gonna toast two at a time, but this recipe makes four sandwiches. And I didn't say this before, but it's important. I've got about 24 ounces of roast beef here, which is about six ounces for each sandwich. From here, I'm gonna throw these rolls into the oven at 400 degrees. And then I'm gonna bake them for five minutes to get just a little bit of that glassy crispness that I was talking about built up around the outside. And after a quick five minute toast, I've got a couple of rolls here with that nice glassy exterior. And from this point forward, I'm actually just gonna build one sandwich so that it's easier to understand. So what I'm gonna do is pop this open. And then on the bottom half, I'm gonna drop two slices of provolone cheese. I like provolone for this just because I think it's like the perfect amount of flavorful. It's not just bland, creamy, hot cheese melt on one hand. And on the other, it's not like Gruyere where it's super nutty and funky and it kind of takes over the entire sandwich. Plus provolone has a pretty nifty cheese pull if you get it melted into the sweet spot, which just adds a whole other dynamic to the sandwich that I really enjoy. So from here, I'm gonna throw this little MF back into the oven, again at 400 F. And I'm gonna bake it for another three to five minutes or however long it takes to get that cheese melted. Then I'll drop my jus onto medium heat. At this point, it's cooled down to about 130 to 140 F, which is the perfect temperature to warm up the beef. I wanna be very clear here. We are not trying to cook this beef or get it super hot because that will overcook it. And deli meat that has been twice cooked is disgusting. Truly, it's not good at all. So we wanna be very, very careful here and not expose this meat to too much heat. So 130, 140 is ideal. And you don't wanna let it swim in here for too long. I'm putting in about four to five slices. I'm gonna give them a little flip, give them a quick little bath just to get them up into that 130, 140 territory. The bread's gonna be hot, the cheese is gonna be hot, and that's gonna carry the heat for the whole sandwich. We don't really have to worry about getting it to that high level. Then after maybe 20 to 30 seconds, the chill has been taken off these and these are warmed through. So I'm just gonna pull them out. You can see they're still nice and medium looking. They've got their rosy color. And they've picked up some of that beef jus. Like I said earlier, the gelatin really helps that cling to the meat. So it's just so much more juicy and so much more luxurious. That cheese needs another 30 seconds or so. So in this tiny little window here, I'm just gonna taste the jus one more time for salt. And it's good, but I think it needs a little bit more sparkle to the point where it's almost salty. Also, I'm bringing this back up to a simmer so that the jus is nice and hot when I go to dip because that's really what's gonna bring life to the sandwich. Keep in mind, we've got store-bought beef, which isn't the most flavorful thing in the world. Yes, it's good, but it's not S tier great. So we wanna bring that extra level of volume to the sandwich and getting this hot and salty is kind of the way we do that. It makes a big difference. After three to four minutes in the oven, we've got perfectly melted provolone cheese. As you can see, it's kind of water falling off the side. That's actually the perfect place because it's going to grip the beef and the beef is gonna stay really well stuck to the bottom layer of the sandwich. Now to stick the landing on this sandwich, you really wanna pay attention to how you're dropping the meat on. I like to ribbon it on, fold it over into nice tight piles like that instead of just slopping it on the sandwich. This is important for structural integrity. It makes the layers interconnected so that when you take a bite, no single piece of beef gets pulled out of the sandwich. So I've got three ribbony layers like this. Then I'm probably gonna take the fourth piece of beef here and lay it across the top to create a unity layer back and forth. As this sat in the bowl hot, it took a little bit of the mid-rare qualities off, but that's totally okay. It doesn't taste cooked. It just lost some of that rosy color, which is bound to happen with a pre-cooked, pre-sliced roast beef. Okay, next I'm gonna take a nice big spoonful of my caramelized onions and just spread that out from end to end on the sandwich. And just make sure that you're spreading it edge to edge, tip to tip, so it's a nice, clean, flat layer of onions on the entire sandwich. That way you're not getting a bite with no sweetness. Finally, I'm gonna add on two little dollops of this horsey sauce on the top bun. You don't wanna go crazy here because it'll make the sandwich a little bit too wet. This is just enough to bring a little bit of zippiness to the entire experience. And since the bun was toasted a little bit, this is gonna soften the inside, which is a good thing. Okay, the next part of this is to put the lid on, press it, and then give it a cut. Seems pedestrian, seems simple, but this is actually the part where your sandwich can get torn apart. So I think it's essential to tuck in the sides here. If there's a ton of stuff hanging off, that's just gonna lead to a sloppy sandwich. I like to come back with a spoon or a fork, or if you have tweezers like this, that's nice. Tuck it in on the sides, and then give the entire thing a nice press so that all those layers kind of get smushed into each other and you just end up having a much more cohesive sandwich overall. Now the cutting. You don't wanna press too hard. You don't wanna press too soft. You really just gotta be in that Goldilocks zone where you're giving it enough downward pressure to get through the meat, which is very, very soft, but not so much that you're gonna be ripping it out of the middle of the sandwich. Medium pressure all the way to the board to make sure the sandwich is all the way cut in half. And now hopefully we are rewarded with a beautiful cross section. Let's take a look. Ooh, baby. That is a nice looking witch, dog. I can't wait to eat this. We gotta get the jus figured out though. I've gotta get this hot. I'm overstimulated. Okay, where's my thing? This is important. I should have done this a second ago. Heat up your jus container so it doesn't cool off your jus. We're gonna give that a minute or so. And after a minute in the oven, I've got a warm jus container. Now I'm gonna pour about a fourth of my nice salty beef jus in there so that I've got enough to wet the sandwich. A lot of the more famous original French dip places will actually offer to dip the whole sandwich before they serve it to you. I don't really like that because it just makes the sandwich fall apart. They do that in Chicago a lot too with Italian beefs. And I just think that it leads to a sog fest that isn't very good. I like to dip individual bites to get them perfectly soggy each time. Anyways, time to dip. Look at that. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. You nasty. Mm. Oh my God. Ooh. Man, I'll tell you what. On the day that we shoot the video, it's pretty rare that the thing that we make is the best that it's been. But this is the best that it's been by like a measurable amount. Every little detail on this thing is just perfectly dialed in. The bread, first of all. The texture is so awesome. It's got that glassy crispness. It's a little bit soggy and it's super beefy. It is just saturated with this salty beef juice. My God. Also, beef and onions, perfect combination. It is literally peanut butter and jelly. I can't think of two things that work better together. And the caramelized onions here are just, they really add something to the sandwich. It's not about making it taste more complicated. They truly make the sandwich taste better. Same thing with the horseradish sauce, actually. That zippiness, that acidity, the creaminess, it's well needed. Structurally too, this thing is perfectly held together. That makes me so happy. Sandwiches that are built messily and fall apart are just D tier. And honestly, there's a special place in hell for people who do that. Life is too short to not eat good sandwiches. It just is. It's not very hard to get them right. When you really nail the structural integrity and everything is held together from the first to the last bite, it is such a pleasure. It is such a treat. And all you have to do is pay attention to how you put things together. And it makes the eating experience so much better and so much more high quality. As always, guys, if you want to make this recipe, I will throw the short version in the description with a link to the long version over at my blog, brianlagrisham.com. As always, thank you so much for your time and attention. Thank you for sticking around to the end of the video and I'll see you next time.