The Chicken Hawk Sandwich is a savory, sweet and spicy deluxe chicken sandwich. With marinaded grilled chicken, melty Swiss cheese, perfectly cooked bacon, crunchy lettuce, garden tomato, and tangy Gaspard’s Gold BBQ Sauce, The Chicken Hawk sandwich will make your mouth buzz with flavor!
The Chicken Hawk Recipe
The Chicken Hawk
Equipment
- charcoal grill
- cutting board
- kitchen knife
Ingredients
- 4 chicken breasts – thinly sliced
- 1 cup Italian Dressing
- 2 tbsp Poultry Rub
- 8 slices bacon
- 4 ciabatta buns
- 4 slices Swiss cheese
- 8 tbsp Gaspard's Gold BBQ Sauce
- 1 tomato – thinly sliced
- 4 leaves leaf lettuce
Instructions
- Marinade the chicken breasts with Italian dressing in the refrigerator for several hours, or overnight.
- Remove the chicken from the marinade, shake off excess, then sprinkle poultry rub on both sides of each breast.
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, then lay out the bacon side by side on the paper. Cook the bacon for 10 to 20 minutes until the bacon fat is rendered, and the bacon is cooked but not overcooked. You will need to check frequently after 10 minutes because the cooking time might be slightly different in your oven.
- Cook the bacon slices in the oven while you preheat the grill.
- Bring the grill temperature up to 400℉ over oak or mesquite lump charcoal.
- Lightly toast the ciabatta bun halves over the hot coals, then set aside.
- Grill the chicken until internal temperature reaches 165℉. Add the Swiss cheese, and close the grill lid for just a minute to melt the cheese. Remove the chicken, and rest under loose foil for 5 minutes. Don't let the foil touch the melted cheese or it will come off.
- Add a generous amount of Gaspard's Gold BBQ sauce to each toasted bun half.
- Top the bottom bun with the chicken and cheese. Add tomato, lettuce, bacon, then the top bun – in that order.
- Slice the sandwich in half and serve. Delicious!
PRIVATE NOTES
Nutrition
More Information
The art of sandwich making
I love inventing sandwiches. A sandwich is like a canvas for painting with colors, textures and flavor. When a sandwich like The Chicken Hawk calls for sauce, I like to use ciabatta bread, The little holes in the bread give the sauce a place to go so that it doesn’t squirt out. Each bite will have a pocket of saucy flavor! It also toasts up beautifully while remaining soft on the inside, resulting in a delicious sandwich.
A combination of multiple recipes
The Chicken Hawk grilled chicken sandwich makes use of several Gaspard Kitchen recipes. Follow the related recipes links below to learn how to make perfectly cooked Char-grilled Chicken Thighs, Oven Crisped Bacon, Italian Dressing, Poultry Rub, and Gaspard’s Gold BBQ Sauce.
Breasts or thighs
For the Chicken Hawk Sandwich, I like to use chicken breast meat that is thinly horizontally sliced. Breast meat does tend to dry out when grilling, so be careful not to over-cook or get the heat too high.
The sandwich layers bacon, lettuce, and tomato. The thinly sliced chicken breast meat won’t make the sandwich so big that you can’t take a full bite. You can obviously use char-grilled chicken thighs on this sandwich. It would taste delicious – but you will probably need to take bigger bites!
Related Recipes
Oven Crisped Bacon
Gaspard’s Gold BBQ Sauce
Care to comment? I'd love to read it. Please be cool, respectful, relevant, positive or constructive, and leave an actual comment. Thanks!