Mini Muffuletta Sandwiches: Perfect for Parties
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The muffuletta is a New Orleans food favorite. However, you don’t have to travel to Louisiana to eat the tasty sandwich. The easier option is to follow this mini muffuletta sandwich recipe at home. Whether you pair the resulting mini muffulettas with Sazerac cocktails is up to you.
Most New Orleans dishes, like gumbo, jambalaya and étouffée, require you to slave over the stove and in the kitchen for hours. All that work is rewarding but it’s not the only way to enjoy flavors of the Crescent City. An easier option is to make mini muffuletta sandwiches – all you need is a focaccia loaf, simple-to-make olive salad, sliced cheese and deli meat.
Discover more great food in New Orleans.
What Is a Muffuletta?
Along with the po’ boy, the muffuletta is one of NOLA’s famous sandwiches on the run. The muffuletta, an Italian stack of meats and cheeses, has been around for over a century and represents everything great about the city’s diversity. The fact is, while we associate many French, Spanish, Creole and Acadian flavors with New Orleans, Sicilian immigrants have had a large hand in the formation of the city’s food culture.
Likely named after Sicily’s mitten-like bread, the muffuletta’s roots lie firmly in the Italian shops that surrounded the city’s French Market back in the day. Central Grocery on Decatur Street, just a few steps away from the Shambles of the once thriving, now touristic, market, sells a classic version of the sandwich. The shop creates its muffulettas on large round seeded rolls and fills them with Italian meat, cheese and, most important, olive salad. Once filled, the round rolls are quartered and sold in hefty individual portions.
Discover more great American sandwiches and Italian sandwiches.
The key to the greatness of this New Orleans sandwich is its olive salad. Most Italian-American sandwiches, like heroes, hoagies and grinders, use oil and vinegar to dress stacked meats, cheeses and vegetables. In the muffuletta, olive salad performs double duty by providing a vegetal bite while, at the same time, dressing and seasoning the sandwich. This difference in construction is what makes the muffuletta special.
While Central Grocery’s muffuletta is good, there are other New Orleans muffulettas worth trying. A few blocks away, at the bar Napoleon House, muffulettas are served warm with melted cheese. Nearby in the Warehouse District, Chef Donald Link’s Cochon Butcher fills its muffulettas with charcuterie made by in-house butchers plus the obligatory provolone and olive salad.
Ok, you probably don’t live in New Orleans and neither do we. And, like us, you probably don’t have access to round Italian muffuletta bread. But there’s no rule that says muffuletta sandwiches have to be round and that you can’t use another bread. Since the square-shaped focaccia we buy is as good as, if not better than, than some of the round Italian bread sold in NOLA, it hit us – we could attempt to recreate the sandwich’s basic framework at home.
We formulated a logical plan that fit our lifestyle. First, we created a large muffuletta with focaccia and filled it with all the necessary ingredients. We then sliced it into individual, party-sized servings. Success! Our mini muffuletta sandwiches channeled New Orleans in every tasty bite.
Ingredients
This mini muffuletta recipe is broken into two steps – creating the olive salad and building the sandwich. These are the necessary ingredients for both steps.
Olive Salad Ingredients
Making olive salad is easy to do if you buy jars of pitted green olives and giardiniera. Here’s everything you need:
Ingredient quantities are detailed in the printable recipe card below.
Sandwich Ingredients
Once you make the olive salad, it’s time to build the sandwich. Here’s everything you need:
Ingredient quantities are detailed in the printable recipe card below.
How To Make Mini Muffuletta Sandwiches
Making a muffuletta is about the easiest, most fun thing you can do in your kitchen.
Inspired by the Napoleon House’s muffuletta, we place the cheese slices on the very top layer of the sandwich and melt the cheese over the other ingredients in an oven on high heat. But if you prefer, you can layer the cheese between some of the meat layers (similar to Central Grocery) and serve the sandwich cold. Either way, it’s important to use a long, sharp bread knife when you slice the sandwich. You also need some toothpicks. We use plain wooden toothpicks but you can use decorative toothpicks if that’s your preference.
The first step in this recipe is to make the olive salad. Pour the red wine vinegar into a medium bowl and then slowly drizzle and whisk in the olive oil, forming an emulsion. Next, pour in the chopped olives, giardiniera, capers and roasted peppers. Once you mix the ingredients, your olive salad is ready.
If you choose to melt the cheese, pre-heat your oven to 260°c / 500°f or as high as your oven will go.
Meanwhile, evenly split the entire focaccia with a long bread knife. Once it’s split, drizzle a small amount of olive oil on the bottom layer.
Now it’s time to stack the sandwich. Start with the meats – first salami, next mortadella and finally coppa/capicola.
Use a spoon to top the meat layers with a thick layer of olive salad.
Stack the cheese over the olive salad layer. Start with a layer of Swiss cheese and then top that layer with a layer of provolone.
Place the stacked bottom layer of the sandwich in the pre-heated oven and remove once the cheese is just melted – approximately two to three minutes.
Move the sandwich to a cutting board and place the other focaccia half on top. Carefully slice the entire sandwich into 16 portions by making 3 slices across each side.
Place a single toothpick into each segment. Move the segments to a serving plate using a long spatula.
Serve the mini muffulettas to your guests and go make yourself a sazerac, hurricane, vieux carré or a brandy crusta. It’s now time to laissez les bons temps rouler!
Mini Muffuletta Sandwich Recipe
Ingredients
Sandwich
- 1 pound focaccia – 8×8" square or 9×9" round (topped with sesame seeds)
- 1 1/2 cups homemade olive salad (see below)
- 2 1/2 ounces salami (thinly sliced)
- 3 1/2 ounces mortadella (thinly sliced)
- 3 ounces coppa or capicola (thinly sliced)
- 3 ounces mild provolone cheese (4 slices)
- 2 1/2 ounces Swiss cheese (4 slices)
- 1 drizzle olive oil (extra virgin)
Olive Salad
- 1 1/2 cups green olives (pitted and coarsely chopped)
- 1/2 cup giardiniera (coarsely chopped)
- 1/4 cup roasted red pepper (julienned)
- 1 tablespoon capers (salted or packed in brine, washed and chopped)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil (extra virgin)
- 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon Italian parsley (fresh)
- 1 teaspoon oregano (dry)
- salt (to taste)
- pepper (to taste)
Equipment
Instructions
Making the Olive Salad
- Pour the red wine vinegar into a medium mixing bowl. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil while using a whisk to create an emulsion.
- Add the chopped olives, chopped giardiniera, chopped capers, julienned roasted red pepper, oregano and black pepper. Mix until well incorporated. Add salt only if necessary.
Building the Muffuletta Sandwich
- Preheat your oven to 500°f / 250°c.
- Split the focaccia into top and bottom slices using a long bread knife.
- Add the cold cuts in layers. First add the salami, next the mortadella and finally the coppa/capicola.
- Add the olive salad in a thick even layer.
- Add the cheese in two layers – first the Swiss and then the provolone.
- Place the bottom half of the sandwich on a sheet pan. Bake it in your pre-heated oven until the cheese just melts – approximately two minutes.
- Move the heated muffuletta bottom to a cutting board and place the top half of the sandwich over the bottom. Slice the muffuletta into 16 individual segments by slicing three rows on each side. Place a toothpick in each mini muffuletta.
- Use a long spatula to move the mini muffulettas to a large serving plate. Serve and get the party started.
Notes
- You can buy or bake a focaccia loaf depending on your motivation and availability. The focaccia can be either round or square.
- After you build the muffuletta, skip the oven step if you don’t want to melt the cheese.
- Be judicious about adding salt to the sandwich since olives and capers are naturally salty.
Nutrition
💡 Frequently Asked Questions
A muffuletta is a stacked Italian-style deli sandwich with assorted deli meats and cheeses plus olive salad.
The muffuletta was invented in New Orleans.
Bread (either focaccia or a special round muffuletta roll), Salami, Mortadella, Coppa or Capicola, Provolone Cheese, Swiss Cheese, Homemade Olive Salad and Olive Oil
You can serve the sandwich cold or you can melt the cheese and serve it warm.
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This recipe beautifully captures the essence of New Orleans in a bite-sized delight. The combination of savory meats, creamy cheeses, and tangy olive salad is simply irresistible. A perfect addition to any gathering—thank you for sharing this flavorful creation!