French dips has been on my weekly meal rotation for MONTHS now. It’s one of those quick and easy meals I can throw together after getting home from work and everyone LOVES it. The recipe may be simple and quick, but it definitely packs a punch of flavor regardless. The best part about these, is that you can customize it to make it to your own liking. I’ll show you my recipe that my family likes, and also some changes you can try too. I hope your family loves this as much as mine does!
Ingredients
- 1.5 lbs of shaved deli roast beef
- 6 sub rolls
- 12 slices of swiss cheese
- 1 carton of beef broth
- 2 packets of au ju gravy mix
- butter/margarine (just to toast bread)
Step 1:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. While the oven is preheating, go ahead and slice the bread almost in half, but leave the last bit of bread still unsliced. Butter both sides of the sliced bread and lay open on a large sheet pan. In order to get all 6 to lay open for the butter to toast, I have to prop them up against each other. You could also use 2 pans if you can’t get them to lay open enough.
Step 2:
In a sauce pan, add the entire carton of broth and the packets of gravy mix. Whisk to break up any lumps in the gravy and add in the meat one slice at a time. Separating the meat as you add it in helps it cook more evenly and get more flavor in each slice. Bring the broth gravy to a low boil. Use tongs to rotate the meat and make sure the gravy doesn’t stick to the bottom.
Step 3:
After about 8-10minutes, the butter should be melted and the bread starting to get a golden brown toast to it. Remove from the oven, and add 2 slices of cheese to each toasted roll. Try to keep them still separated so that the cheese can melt over each side of the sub without melting off of the bread. Return to the oven for another 8-10 minutes.
Step 4:
Once the cheese has melted, remove cheese subs from the oven. The meat should now be a nice brown color, and the gravy should be thickening slightly. Using tongs, add meat to your liking to each sub. I try to split mine as evenly as possible (that way no one fights over them) and they’re roughly all the same size. Once the meat is added, close up each sub and, optional but recommended, give them a diagonal slice. Ladle out the au ju gravy into small dipping cups. The diagonal cut helps the sandwiches fit into the dip cups better and also looks extra fancy. If you’re just using a bowl for your gravy dip, cutting isn’t necessarily required.
I like to serve these subs with either some mac n cheese or chips and dip (what can I say, we like dip). Serving with easy and quick sides also helps get this dinner from the stove to the table quicker after a long day.
Options to make it your own:
- Change the type of cheese. Our favorite is regular swiss cheese. We’ve also used baby swiss and white American cheese and they’re also delicious. Any cheese that pairs well with beef and melts well is a good option.
- Change the amount of au ju gravy. If you prefer a less gravy and more juice consistency, just add less of the gravy packets. I have tried 1 packet with 1 carton of broth and the flavor is just as good, it’s just more of a runny consistency opposed to a thicker gravy like juice.
- Add more/less meat. I started out using just 1 lb of meat when I made these. While for me it felt good enough, the boys would disagree. They like more meat. 1.5lbs seems to be our happy sweet spot. Feel free to adjust to how much meat you want on your subs.
I hope you try these out and enjoy them as much as we do! We have these at least once every other week and my whole family loves them. It’s very kid friendly. My oldest likes to take chop sticks and dip her meat in the gravy, my youngest is into dissecting his sandwich and eating the whole thing separate, and my middle only eats the meat from the center. No matter what, my kiddos are fed a warm delicious meal after I’ve worked a long day and don’t have the energy for much else. Let me know what you think of this recipe or if you make any changes yourself.