We’re digging into another fried chicken sandwich this week, but I do suggest an alternative in this blog post if you’d prefer an easier and (maybe) lower-calorie baked version. This is a fantastic sandwich that’s chock-full of flavor, and I’ve shared recipes and probably way too many photos about it and all the sandwich components below.
What is this sandwich?
This is a chicken parmesan sandwich, but instead of a marinara sauce, it’s focused on a vodka sauce. What is vodka sauce, you might be asking? Vodka sauce is an Italian-American-style sauce typically served over pasta that happens to have a pretty, pink color made from tomato, vodka, and cream or milk. If you want to look at it in simple terms, vodka sauce is something that would be similar to a combination of a tomato-based marinara sauce and a cheesy, creamy Alfredo sauce.
Most of the alcohol is cooked off, so vodka sauce is not going to get you drunk, but you could leave the vodka out of the recipe if you were averse or serving someone who can’t consume alcohol. The absence of vodka will change the flavor, though, be aware of that.
There are several theories on where vodka sauce was invented. Some suggest it could have been invented in New York City, and others think it could have started in Italy. The NYC claim was from a Chef named Luigi Franzese’s penne alla vodka dish that he first served at Orsini Restaurant in the 1970s.
Other stories about the origin of this dish are from Bologna in Italy, where supposedly a Roman chef at a restaurant named Dante invented the dish for a vodka company that was hoping to promote their product in Italy.
Regardless of where vodka sauce got its start, all stories seem to point to it first being introduced to the wider world at some point in the 1970s before becoming popular in the 1980s.
But all of that is just about the sauce. The origins of how vodka sauce became intertwined with a chicken parmesan sandwich are much more muddled. It seems likely to me that the first vodka chicken parm sandwich did originate at a sandwich shop in New York City or even New Jersey at some point, but really, we just don’t know. At this point, it has become a pretty popular sandwich that Italian-focused deli/sandwich shops are finding to be fairly trendy these days. I visited and ate a vodka chicken parm sandwich during the testing phase of my recipe.
D’Amato’s Bakery Vodka Chicken Parm
Recently, I left my kitchen and tried one of the more popular vodka chicken parmesan sandwiches in my local area before I published this blog post. It was pretty good. It wasn’t great, but then again, my experience at this particular restaurant wasn’t great either. We visited D’Amato’s Bakery, and it was pretty busy on a Friday at lunch. They somehow lost our order after we had paid, and my wife and I stood around for 30 minutes waiting for two sandwiches while people who ordered after us came and went.
I get it, they were busy and I’m definitely not holding this against the sandwich because once I walked back to the counter and asked about our order, the manager on premises jumped into action and got us some sandwiches in a couple of minutes.
Like I said, the sandwich itself was pretty good. The chicken was cooked properly, and it was tender. The sandwich was wrapped in foil and paper, and it had steamed itself so that the cheese was very melty and the bread had softened.
Overall, I would definitely order this sandwich again if I end up at D’Amato’s, but the versions of vodka chicken parm sandwiches that I made for this blog post and shared my recipe for down below were considerably better.
If you’ve ever had a regular chicken parm and enjoyed it, you’ll love a vodka chicken parm. The only real difference is the sauce. I shared and wrote about a tasty, baked chicken parm sandwich once and wrote about it.
First, we need some bread.
Chicken-sized sandwich roll
I baked my Chicago-style sandwich rolls for this sandwich. This is probably the roll I have made the most for the sandwich blog outside of hamburger buns. You can scroll down below the recipe for these rolls to see the other 8 times I have used them in different sandwiches. It’s a fairly easy recipe, and I’ve gotten some good feedback from other bakers on it.
The rolls this recipe makes are chewy on the inside and a bit crunchy on the exterior, which works well to stand up to a sandwich with saucy fried chicken and a lot of melty cheese. Unless you have a fancy oven that provides a steamy environment, you will have to spray or paint some water on the rolls just prior to baking. This should help add just a tiny bit of steam, which does seem to work to help the exterior brown and become a bit more crunchy.
Here’s my Chicago-style sandwich roll recipe that you can use for this sandwich, or you can buy something similar. There’s not really such a thing as a “Chicago-style sub roll,” but I originally created the recipe to work for Italian beef sandwiches, and now we’re stuck with the name. Get used to it and bake them for yourself!
Chicago-style sub rolls
Similar, but not a full copycat of a Turano brand roll. These are great for Italian beef sandwiches or any other type of sub. There's a thin crunchy and chewy exterior and a nice soft pillowy interior, perfect for a dunk in au jus or gravy.
Get RecipeGarlic bread
I like to turn the roll into garlic bread before sandwiching.
This step is totally optional, but it will elevate the sandwich to a different level. Basically, you’re making garlic and buttery toast that your vodka chicken parm will be sandwiched between. The easiest way to do this is with a compound butter, or basically just a softened butter that’s mixed with minced garlic, salt, pepper, and parsley.
First, you need seasoned garlic butter to spread between the sliced rolls, and then a broiler. Toasting the bread makes it so that the fully sauced and fried chicken cutlet will have a nicely crispy bread roll to help hold everything together. Plus, the garlic and butter don’t hurt anything at all. The crunch from toasting is the main benefit here, though, so if you want to cut down on calories and effort, you can just broil or toast the bun and leave out the garlic butter (but I think you should live a little and don’t skip it).
Here’s the compound butter recipe I use for this sort of garlic toast. Use it or skip it, I am not your mother.
Garlic compound butter
This is a garlicky and cheesy butter spread that can be used to create garlic bread or placed on top of a freshly cooked steak to add flavor and excitement.
Get RecipeVodka sauce
The most important ingredients for vodka sauce are tomato sauce, cream or milk, and vodka. Vodka sauce isn’t going to get you drunk, because much of the alcohol will dissipate during the simmering process, but a tiny bit will still remain in the sauce after it’s fully cooked. Here are some photos of the three main ingredients I used in my vodka sauce recipe.
It’s not that easy to capture with a camera, but Vodka sauce gets a nice orange or salmon color, and it’s creamy, savory, and a bit garlicy, which works very well on pasta or in this sandwich. The color is going to depend on how much cream is in the sauce. The more cream, the paler and less red the sauce will be.
For this sandwich, I made the vodka sauce a day in advance so that it had time to meld all the ingredients together a bit. This also made it so that there wasn’t quite as much to do when it was time for chicken frying and sandwich assembly.
Note: this recipe makes quite a bit of sauce, so you should probably prepare to make some pasta later in the week to ladle some sauce onto. Or you can freeze it for later. This Food Lab blog post has some reheating techniques for vodka sauce at the very bottom if you’re interested.
Crispy panko-crusted chicken
A chicken parm sandwich is typically coated in crispy breadcrumbs called Panko. These are Japanese-style breadcrumbs that are a bit crunchier than the regular breadcrumbs that you might find at the grocery store. The process for coating the chicken in breadcrumbs actually starts out a few hours or up to overnight with a buttermilk marinade. The marinade doesn’t just serve the purpose of flavoring the piece of chicken, buttermilk also helps to tenderize the meat.
After the marinade process, you need to set up a three-stage breading station. The first step is seasoned all-purpose flour, then an egg, plus buttermilk mixture, and finally the chicken goes through seasoned Panko-style breadcrumbs until each piece is perfectly coated with each stage of the mixture.
Frying chicken
Once the chicken pieces are coated fully in the three-stage breading process, it’s time to fry. I typically fry chicken like this at 350 F (175 C) for 4 minutes per side. If your chicken piece is super thick, it might take a bit longer for the center to be fully cooked, but if you’ve done the work of pounding out a cutlet to be around 1/2 inch thick, a total 8 minutes of frying should be enough.
Once the chicken is fully cooked, move it to a cooling rack set on top of paper towels to rest. You may be worried about the meat cooling off, but don’t stress that, a chicken parm sandwich goes back into the oven or under a broiler where cheese gets melty, so the sandwich will be plenty warm even if the chicken has to rest for 10 to 15 minutes while you get everything else ready.
I did not create a recipe for a baked alternative to Vodka chicken parm, but if you want to try that, I did create a full recipe and sandwich blog post for a baked version of a regular chicken parm sandwich that you can read about. All you’d need to do is use the vodka sauce in the recipe below instead of a marinara.
Baking the chicken instead of frying it should provide a bit of a lower-calorie sandwich, but don’t kid yourself too much; it’s still not a super healthy sandwich. Just enjoy one from time to time in moderation.
Mozzarella
Normal chicken parmesan or chicken parm sandwiches will have fresh mozzarella melted on top. I normally do that on sandwiches like this, but for this particular batch of vodka parm sandwiches, I ended up using low-moisture mozzarella instead. Both are good options in my opinion, and the resulting sandwich is just about the same once the cheese is melted on top of the chicken.
Parmesan
Even though this sandwich is called a vodka chicken parm, it sort of seems like the parmesan is one of the more boring components. I do think this cheese is necessary for the flavor, though, but there’s just not that much to write about the parmesan component. I just suggest buying either a block of Parmesan to shred yourself or some nicer pre-shredded Parmesan than the stuff in the green plastic container. Treat yo self!
You should make sure that you don’t forget to sprinkle the parmesan on top of the mozzarella before the broiling/melting process. The parmesan will help to add a bit of browning color to the exterior top of the cheese, which adds to a more interesting-looking sandwich in my experience.
This sandwich also has parmesan cheese in the garlic bread and in the vodka sauce, so you might as well stock up a little.
Build process
First, you make garlic bread. Then you fry the chicken, top the chicken with vodka sauce, mozzarella cheese, and parmesan cheese. Broil the garlic bread and the cheese-covered chicken.
Next, it’s time to build. Spread some vodka sauce on the bottom piece of garlic bread, top with the cheese-covered chicken, and then add more vodka sauce and extra parmesan cheese on top before closing the sandwich.
If you need a garnish or you’re planning to photograph the sandwich for Instagram, hit the melted cheese with some finely chopped parsley or basil before adding the top bun to complete the sandwich.
Start with your sliced six-inch sandwich roll. Spread an even layer of garlic compound butter on both sides. 
Cover a sandwich sized piece of chicken with a bit of vodka sauce. 
Layer on a couple of shingles of mozzarella cheese. 
Don’t forget the parmesan before broiling to melt all the cheese. 
Once the bread is turned into toasted garlic bread, it’s time to build the sandwich. 
I add some sauce to the bottom roll. 
Then top with the broiled, fried chicken cutlet and broiled mozzarella and parmesan. 
A bit more sauce helps things to be extra flavorful. 
Another sprinkle of parmesan and we’re almost finished. 
Traditionally you can sprinkle shredded basil, but this is parsley because my basil didn’t look so good. 
Close ethe sandwich hat to complete the mission.
The sandwich
This vodka chicken parm is a fantastic sandwich. The sauce is great, the chicken is nice and crispy, and tender through each bite. The bread in this case works great with all that sauce and melty cheese, and everything comes together in what could become one of your favorite sandwiches.
This sandwich is very comforting, and the sauce alone makes for a great “gravy” for penne pasta or maybe even a soup if you’re hungry enough. The sauce also freezes really well, so you can make some sandwiches and save the rest of the sauce for a future pasta night.
Check out some photos I took of the sandwiches I made and get the full recipe after a few scrolls of your mouse.
Vodka chicken parm sandwich
Crunchy fried chicken pairs very well with melty mozzarella, sharp salty parmesan, and a savory and creamy vodka sauce in this super comforting sandwich.
Ingredients:
Vodka sauce- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 5 cloves garlic, finely minced
- 1⁄2 cup vodka
- 1 pint heavy whipping cream
- 2 15 ounce cans of tomato sauce
- 1 15 ounce can of crushed tomatoes
- 1⁄2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
- 1⁄4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped
- 1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
- 1 chicken breast, cut or butterflied into 2 sandwich sized pieces
- 1⁄2 cup buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1⁄2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup panko bread crumbs
- 2 teaspoons salt (split)
- 2 ground black pepper (split)
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- peanut or canola oil for frying (at least 2 inches deep in your pot/pan)
- 1⁄2 stick of butter
- 2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
- 1 teaspoon parsley
- 1⁄4 teaspoon salt
- 1⁄4 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 2 six-inch long sandwich roll
- parmesan cheese, grated
- vodka sauce (from above)
- fresh mozzarella (or low-moisture mozzarella)
- fresh basil or parsley, chopped (optional garnish)
Directions:
Vodka sauce: heat a large pan over medium-high heat and add one tablespoon of olive oil. When the oil starts shimmering, add garlic and saute for 2 minutes.
Carefully add 1/2 cup of vodka to the pan with the garlic. Simmer the vodka and garlic for 5 minutes, stirring often, then add the heavy whipping cream, tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes, parmesan cheese, salt, and black pepper.
Bring the mixture to boil and then add the basil and parsley. Reduce the heat until the sauce is just simmering and cook for 10 minutes. Taste the sauce to see if it needs more salt and then remove it from the heat and allow the sauce to cool. You can store the sauce in a closed container in the fridge for up to a week. Serve the extra sauce over pasta for a quick weeknight meal.
Buttermilk marinade: butterfly 1 chicken breast into 2 smaller sandwich-sized pieces. Add them to a bowl and cover with 1/2 cup buttermilk, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon black pepper. Store in a sealed container in the fridge for at least one hour or overnight.
Chicken dredging: prepare a dredging station with three bowls. The first bowl will contain all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1 teaspoon of black pepper, all mixed together. The second bowl should contain a splash of the buttermilk marinade mixed with a beaten egg. The final bowl should be panko bread crumbs, the rest of the salt and black pepper, and all of the garlic powder and onion powder. Mix up all three bowls to incorporate their ingredients.
Using one chicken cutlet at a time, place in the flour mixture and thoroughly coat the chicken, pressing the flour into all surfaces and any crevices on all sides.
Transfer the floured chicken into the egg/milk mixture and make sure it gets wet and coated on all sides.
Finally, place the chicken cutlet into the panko bread crumb mixture and make sure there are no visible areas where egg/milk shows through. Press panko into the chicken very well, coating all around.
Repeat for all of your chicken cutlets and let each one rest after dredging on parchment or a baking rack while your frying oil comes to temperature.
Chicken frying: in a large pot or skillet, add peanut oil until it fills at least 2 inches deep in the vessel. On medium-high heat, bring the oil up to 350 degrees. If you do not have a thermometer, heat the pot over a burner for a few minutes and sprinkle a tiny bit of flour in the oil. If it starts to bubble as soon as the flour hits the oil, it should be hot enough (make a mental note that you should get a thermometer).
Add each cutlet into the oil, making sure to ease it in away from your body so that you do not splash yourself with hot oil.
Fry in the oil for 4 minutes per side or until the crust of the chicken is nice and golden brown. Once the chicken is all done, move it to a plate or cooling rack to rest.
Garlic compound butter and toast: in a small bowl, combine the butter, garlic, parsley, salt, and pepper, and using a spoon or spatula, mix everything very well.
This is a garlic compound butter, and it can be placed in a sealed container or wrapped in plastic wrap in the refrigerator for up to a week.
Slice your sandwich rolls and spread some garlic compound butter on the inside of each piece (about 1 to 2 tablespoons per slice). Broil each slice for 4 to 5 minutes or until the bread is crispy and just starting to turn golden brown.
Mozzarella cheese melting: while the cheese is broiling or you can actually do this at the same time if you want, place a fried chicken cutlet on a sheet pan and top it with a two or three spoonfuls of vodka sauce and then layer on 2 or 3 slices of mozzarella cheese in a single layer on top of the chicken.
Sprinkle a healthy layer of grated Parmesan cheese on top of the mozzarella. Broil the cheese-covered chicken for 4 to 5 minutes or until the cheese is melty and starting to brown.
Sandwich assembly: now that the bread is toasted and the cheese is melted, it's time to build the sandwich.
Spread a bit of vodka sauce on the bottom piece of toasted bread roll. Top that with the cheese-covered chicken and add more vodka sauce on top of the cheese. Sprinkle with a bit of chopped basil or parsley and then a bit more grated Parmesan cheese.
Top the sandwich with the other half of the roll and serve.
Check back next week
Next week we’ll be eating potatoes and beans! Come back Monday and see what I mean.
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