Main Dish Pastrami-Swiss Summer Vegetable Salad and the Best Pastrami in the World

What if I took the idea for a pastrami-Swiss cheese sandwich and sort of saladified it?

The idea popped into my head while I was tasting what I now consider to be the world’s best pastrami. It’s created by Fork in the Road, and is sustainably-raised beef uncured pastrami, humanely raised on a family farm with no antibiotics or added hormones, with no nitrate or nitrite preservatives added.

All that adds up to deeply flavored but not overly salted (thank you!) tender meat, which my husband has declared the best sandwich meat he has ever tasted. This is a man who takes a sandwich for lunch every day, for the past 30 years. That’s a lot of sandwich meat by which to make a comparison.

We did make sandwiches out of it, then we each sneaked into the kitchen and ate some straight out of the container while standing in front of the refrigerator (don’t judge; you would do the same), and I can’t believe I even gave a few precious slices to a friend who saw my Instagram feed and wanted to know what all the fuss was about this new pastrami.

This pastrami is really all that and a bag of chips! You can find it at Whole Foods, or use their store locator to help pinpoint where you can get it. And you may either blame me or thank me if you never eat another dry turkey sandwich again.

But back to my sandwich-that-really-wanted-to-be-a-salad. The meat called out for its best friend Swiss cheese, and something a bit spicy (watermelon radishes to the rescue!), and some other vegetables that jumped into the bowl (cukes and carrots). Then, of course, it needed some sweet summer plum to balance it out, and the tiniest drop of olive oil and lemon zest to bring everything together. Vinegar would be too overpowering for this.

Chop chop, gently stir, and put it on your dinner plate. Ahhhhh…summer evenings on the patio!

Tagged as: beef, Fork in the Road, main dish salad, meat, pastrami, Salad, sandwich