Fried Bologna & Other Southern Sandwiches
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Southern Plate is more than just me typing and chatting away. In fact, YOU are the most important part of SouthernPlate.com. With that in mind, I hope you’ll take time to leave a comment and share your favorite sandwich from your childhood. See bottom of this post for more details! Gratefully, Christy 🙂 
When my mama was a girl they had a tradition of going out riding through the countryside on Sunday afternoons. They’d stop off at a little store to have thick slices of bologna cut off and made into bologna and cheese sandwiches. Pair that with a bottled drink and they were living high on the hog! “There just wasn’t anything like getting to ride in that car and look out the window while you ate a bologna sandwich!”.
This treat was passed down to my generation when we often sat down for lunch with a big loaf of bread and a stack of cheese slices in the middle of the table while Mama fried up bologna in a skillet. We’d each make our own sandwich and I’d make mine just like my brother did: Fried bologna, cheese, and potato chips settled in between two pieces of “loaf bread”.
Bologna sandwiches, sometimes referred to as “the poor man’s steak”, are such a part of our culture, they’re even used to gauge a person’s character. On the day we got married, my husband’s best man, Jim, had driven in a ways and was planning on staying overnight before heading back. He stayed with my Grandmother, who lived across the road from what was to be our new home. It had been quite a day with the wedding and reception and that evening Grandmama and Jim went out on her porch to relax and look out over the river.
For supper, Grandmama made the two of them bologna sandwiches.
To Grandmama, Jim and my husband represented a new generation, with a huge divide between folks her age and them. Grandmama had grown up dirt poor and picking cotton all of her life and here was this young man newly graduated from college with an engineering degree whose experience with her world had been nothing more than glancing at the cotton as the car went by. Its sometimes a little intimidating for folks who come from such humble backgrounds in situations like this, but when Jim accepted that bologna sandwich, it spoke volumes to Grandmama about the type of person he was at heart. Even now whenever he is mentioned she always chimes, in,
“That Jim is just a real good boy, he sat out there on the porch and ate a bologna sandwich with me”.
To make the sandwich from my childhood you’ll need: Bread, cheese, mayo…
and potato chips 🙂
My brother taught me the wonders of a potato chip sandwich over thirty years ago.
I think it almost made up for him cutting the entire side of my hair off a few years later.
Now we have to fry out bologna. I always cut a slit halfway through to keep it from curling up into a bowl as it fries.
I prefer Zeigler bologna because it is made in Alabama. I try to buy as close to home as I can because last thing we want is to end up relying on a company halfway across the country for our food supplies. I think it’s best to support local suppliers to ensure that you have local suppliers. Zeigler’s has been around for over seventy five years. Their main plant is in Tuscaloosa and our own highly respected Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant was once an owner of the company as well.
Reminder to all: I am not into football but Alabamians take their football very seriously.
So whatever team you are for, GO THEM!
You don’t need to spray your pan or anything, just put your bologna in it and cook it on medium, turning after it browns on one side. Some folks like there is just barely heated but I actually like a wee bit of black on mine 🙂
Note to myself: You use the word “actually” too much, stop it. Now. Seriously.
~sighs~
Oh lawd, that’s some good eatin’!
I always smoosh it a bit to crunch the chips down some 🙂
Grandmama, I’m a real good girl because I still eat bologna sandwiches!
A few posts back we got into a comment discussion on strange sandwich combinations we grew up on. It was a fascinating comment section and we all really got a hoot out of reading it. I’d like to devote this comment section to those sandwiches. What did you grow up on? What brands do you insist on and why?
Mayonaise sandwich? Mustard sandwich? PB and banana? Tell us all about it! Also, why do you think Southerners eat such strange sandwich combinations-ketchup sandwich, anyone?
I think it is due to lack of food. When food was scarce, you could put something between two slices of bread, call it a sandwich and then it suddenly seemed like a meal. What do you think?
If there is anything else you wanna talk about in the comments section, feel free to do that, too.
See someone else’s comment you wanna reply to? Go right ahead!
I consider this to be my big old porch and we’re all just a standing around visiting with each other.
Y’all keep the conversation going and I’ll keep the tea glasses filled!
We’re all family here anyways. 🙂
“The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.”
Submitted by Rebecca Hall. To submit your quote or read more, please click here.
I just love getting new positive quotes so thank you in advance!
I grew up with three kinds of sandwiches: grilled cheese, potted meat, and bologna. My grandma was the best at making grilled cheese. My daddy made the best potted meat sandwiches (with plain Lay’s, like I like em’), but my mama spoiled me on fried bologna. She would get bologna and yellow American cheese from the deli. If I wanted Oscar Mayer, I only had to ask my grandpa.
Mama wouldn’t give me the sandwiches too often because of how horribly bad they were for me, but they were a great treat back in the day. She fried the bologna with a little country butter (the good stuff) in a cast iron skillet with a sprinkling of salt and pepper until dark and crispy around the edges. She would use my favorite bread (Merida old fashioned) and after she fried the thick bologna, she would sandwich it between two slices of cheese and two slices of buttered bread. Then she grilled the bread like a grilled cheese, but with that crispy bologna in the middle. She’d pair it with a small handful of plain Lays, a small chocolate Moon Pie, and semi-slushed can of RC Cola, and that was lunch. Nobody else ever could make fried bologna quite like her!
Yummm!!! Mama’s always make the best food!!
My eyes swelled with tears. I remember my mom doing the same thing. Often times, taken strolls out to her old house that her mom and dad gave to her (then passed on) to work on and fix back up. She would always buy bologna, white bread, cheese, mayo and cold drinks with chips to eat as we worked and talked. That was in the late ’70’s and early ’80’. Time has gone by now, BUT now the MEMORIES! My mom passed away at 60 years old in 1995. My heart bleeds for her. These memories of the “Good Ole Days” still hold DEAR to my Heart! Thank you for Sharing! 🙂
Being hispanic, we use to call them mexican round steaks.lol
Oh my! I was scrolling through your recipes and came upon this post. I grew up in the South and am still in the South! (small town in Mississippi, and now living in Memphis, TN) Your story made me SMILE as I remember making fried Bologna Sandwiches with cheese with my little brother as a child, and then later in life with my husband! I never put potato chips on my Fried Bologna sandwiches (Must Try!) but I DID put thin Lays potato chips on my Pimento Cheese sandwiches! And I would push down on the top bread slice to slightly crush them – lol. I also put potato chips on my ham sandwiches (Cheese Doritos were Fabulous but Wavy Lays are great also!), and french fries on my Mc Donalds Hamburgers – lol. I would even make a sandwich out of Cream of Chicken Soup, mixed with Cooked Rice and butter. Just slap big spoonful’s onto some white bread and it is to DIE FOR! I think the butter added to the experience of that sandwich. (Just follow the chicken and rice recipe on the can and stir in some butter and spoon onto white bread and make a sandwich). Dill pickle slices on Meatball Subs were Superb. I had a strange but “oh my goodness SO GOOD” snack as a child and then a young adult (and I must admit, every once in a blue moon I will crave it again (mostly with sweet pickles) …saltine crackers with a little mayo spread on top, then add a slice of dill pickle, or either a slice of sweet pickle (which ever mood and pickle you prefer at that time!) and it was great! If I didn’t have pickles on hand, I just put mayo on the crackers and ate it or break them up into a bowl and mix a little mayo in with them. I remember eating corn beef hash out of the can and heating it up in a pot, then take a bread slice, cut it into bite size pieces (but keep it still in the bread shape…) and spoon corn beef hash on it and eating it with a fork. Of course, I graduated to Ramen Noodles when I was a college student, but I always, ALWAYS, had my fried Bologna Sandwich whenever I could and a FROSTY MUG of A & W Root beer. 🙂 Another great snack as a child was Peanut Butter Toast with Marshmallows…lol! Literally toast a piece of bread, then smear creamy peanut butter onto it, press some mini marshmallows and toast again until marshmallows are just a little brown and gooey. If I had chocolate on hand, I would sprinkle some of it with the marshmallows and toast it. “Toast S’ Mores!” Re-reading my post with the bread and potato chips and crackers…must be a “Carb Lovers thang” ha! I can’t wait to try many of your Delicious Recipes! Thanks so much for being “You” – – God Bless ~
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This Virginia girl loves a fried bologna sandwich w/mayonnaise! When I was little, my daddy worked at Philip Morris and right next door to the plant was a BBQ place called Hawk’s. They had the best bologna “burgers” around! My daddy always liked his w/cheese & fried onions but I stuck w/just mayonnaise on mine. I also grew up eating apple butter & peanut butter sandwiches. Every once in a while I’ll get a hankering for one 🙂
Banana and mayo with lays or golden flake tater chips, lots of times just plain mayo and tater chips. Still have them all the time. I also like sliced apples or sliced pears with mayo. Every summer I have tomato sandwiches for lunch almost everyday when my tomatoes start coming in from my garden. I’m a newbie here at your site but I love to read the comments and recipes. I’m 51 y/o and recently started canning fresh fruits and veggies. I am going to have alot of great ideas this fall.
I always loved banana and peanut butter, I would take the banana and mash it up good then put some PB in it stir it around, my kids always called them Mashie Mashie, they loved them growing up, I still eat it like that !! So Good !!
I was going through your webpage and came across the different kind of sandwich of your childhood. I will tell you mine. As I recall, you don’t like mayo, but I liked mayo and banana sandwiches. I also liked mayo and grape jelly. Gross, right?
Linda
Oh my, white bread, Miracle Whip, “minner cheese”, (pimiento cheese) made with Velveeta and cheddar shredded, Miracle whip, and pimiento chunks.
Or baloney on white with Miracle Whip and a slice of american cheese. I like this one grilled on a black iron griddle in butter, browned on both sides until the cheese is melted and the baloney is hot. Didn’t have potato chips, but always had a glass of cold milk.
But nothing is better than a big fat sliced tomato right out of the garden, still warm from the sun, on white bread with Miracle Whip and a little sprinkle of black pepper. You need a big ol’ glass of sweet tea with this one. MMMMMMmmm-mmmmmmmm.