Pack A Picnic: 10 Dinner-Worthy Sandwiches To Eat Outside

Tonight, take your dinner to the beach, park or backyard and enjoy the alfresco atmosphere. We've gathered up 10 hearty sandwiches that pack up easily and go where you go. From the meatiest fare to the veggie-heavy, there's a satisfying sammie on this list for you.

This is our version of a bánh mì, a classic French-Vietnamese sandwich. Like the East India Trade Chicken, this sandwich serves as an example of the positive results of European imperialism.

Looking for a wine bar in NYC, are you? Pop into Corkbuzz at Chelsea Market for a glass of something spectacular and a meticulously curated selection of cheese, charcuterie and other friendly small bites. Consulting chef Missy Robbins stacks meaty Italian cotechino (a type of salami) on a crusty baguette with herbed salsa verde and bold garlic aioli that any fine wine would be lucky to be served alongside.

Pro pit master Troy Black, a regular on the Kansas City Barbeque Society circuit, teamed up with the editors of Southern Living magazine to pen All Fired Up, a cookbook that'll keep you busy at the grill all summer long. Everyone likes a great tuna sandwich (or blob), but nobody really likes canned tuna. We call that a conundrum. Straighten things out with this spectacular grilled tuna sandwich.

We hit up the chefs at NYC favorite Num Pang for their recipe for a Cambodian veal meatball sandwich. It's got little in common with the Italian meatball sub. But if you're looking to expand your repertoire or just throw your taste buds a curveball, this is a great way to do it.

I love chicken salad sandwiches, and I've found that what you can do to chicken in this particular application, you can do to chickpeas. Buffalo, Waldorf, curry, Asian — you name it, I've chickpea salad–sandwiched it. This time around, I'm going Middle Eastern with tangy goat cheese and za'atar, and serving it in mini whole-wheat pitas with all the fixins.

Wow! Just wow. This sandwich is an unbelievably tasty combination of warm crusty bread, savory pistachio pesto, rich caramelized onion, peppery arugula and sweet and savory grilled figs. I hope you enjoy this magical meal as much as I do. Although there are multiple components to this recipe, it doesn't take too much time to make. Save it for a day when you're craving something spectacular, and turn an ordinary day into an extraordinary one with your first bite.

Pro pit master Troy Black, a regular on the Kansas City Barbeque Society circuit, teamed up with the editors of Southern Living magazine to pen All Fired Up, a cookbook that'll keep you busy at the grill all summer long. We presume you know of the Italian pork sandwich, a meaty bomb packed with spicy, garlicky sautéed broccoli rabe and sharp smoked provolone. Here's how to make a great one.

This isn't your typical leftovers sandwich in that we're leaving pretty much all the other prepared food for other (equally delicious) leftovers sandwiches. The pan bagnat is a French-Mediterranean baguette sandwich that stars tuna, hard-boiled eggs, roasted red peppers, olives, cucumbers, tomatoes and any riff on a vinaigrette. Crisp (or at least moderately crisp) green beans, no matter how they're prepared, are a great addition.

So much Middle Eastern cuisine is interwoven and reinterpreted from country to country, but Lebanon appears to get the credit for arayes kafta. Basically it's a toasted sandwich with a spicy meat stuffing. Many recipes ask you to use baharat spice, which you can track down on the internet, but basically baharat is an Arabic spice blend that can be made using spices you may well already have in your pantry. This makes a great barbecue meal, an easy hot light lunch, or the most incredible dish ever eaten by a drunk guy at a bus stop.

Every once in a while we just have to pat ourselves on the back for doing something we haven't seen in other cookbooks. We aren't entirely sure we're the first to make a brisket patty melt using corn bread, but we are sure this is the best version out there. A vast improvement on the close-to-perfect patty melt is enough to make us feel pretty good about this recipe. When you start seeing this on the menu of every chain restaurant in America in five years, just remember who thought of it first.