Copycat Panera Frontera Chicken Panini
Try this Copycat Panera Frontera Chicken Panini recipe, or contribute your own.
Try this Copycat Panera Frontera Chicken Panini recipe, or contribute your own.
- 1/4 cup mayonnaise
- 1 tomato, sliced
- 1/2 small red onion sliced
- extra virgin olive oil or nonstick spray
- 1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce + 1 or 2 teaspoons
- 4 focaccia buns (or 1 loaf focaccia bread cut into quarters)
- 2 chicken breasts (12-14oz total ) cooked then shredded
- 8 oz mozzarella ball sliced
- 10-12 fresh basil leaves chopped
- Carbohydrate 4.39881250107782 g
- Cholesterol 5.25000000443809 mg
- Fat 4.9681000041718 g
- Fiber 0.387374990371629 g
- Protein 0.421000000076082 g
- Saturated Fat 0.750000000634013 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (113g)
- Sodium 122.860000101062 mg
- Sugar 4.01143751070619 g
- Trans Fat 4.21810000353779 g
- Calories 63 calories
Step-by-step
- Add mayonnaise, chipotle pepper, and adobo sauce to a mini food processor bowl then process until smooth. Alternatively, chop pepper up very fine then stir with sauce into mayonnaise.
- Spread chipotle mayo onto tops and bottoms of buns then layer on shredded chicken, tomato, red onion, mozzarella cheese, and fresh basil. Press in panini press over medium-high heat until cheese is melted and bread is crisp. Serve immediately.
Warm focaccia yields a golden crust that crackles gently under pressure while the interior mozzarella turns molten and soft. Pressing a sandwich requires balancing exterior crispness against internal melting speed, which means managing heat precisely so the bread toasts before the cheese separates. When building this sandwich, slice the red onion to a uniform thickness of two millimeters so it softens slightly from the residual heat of the press without dominating the chicken and fresh basil.
Adapting Batch Sizes for Any Crowd
Scaling this sandwich production upward relies entirely on maintaining consistent pressure across multiple batches rather than overcrowding a single hot surface. Working with a standard home panini press limits capacity to one or two sandwiches at a time, requiring cooked components like shredded chicken and sliced tomatoes to rest at room temperature for up to twenty minutes without losing their structural integrity. Doubling the chipotle mayonnaise mixture scales linearly, though adjusting the adobo heat requires tasting the emulsion before spreading it onto the bread. Because excess moisture from tomatoes can sog the focaccia, blot the slices on paper towels for precisely five minutes prior to assembly to preserve the crunch of the toasted oil-brushed exterior.
Roots of the Pressed Sandwich
Pressed and toasted sandwiches trace their lineage through Mediterranean street food traditions where flatbreads and oils meet direct radiant heat. Utilizing focaccia leverages an open-crumb structure that absorbs olive oil effectively during the three-minute pressing window at medium-high heat. Chopping the single chipotle pepper finely ensures the capsaicin distributes evenly through the fat of the mayonnaise rather than concentrating in one hot bite.
