The Best Way To Wrap Packed Sandwiches To Avoid Sogginess

Whether you're packing sandwiches for school lunches, picnics, or simply because you crave a three-ingredient sourdough and tomato sandwich in the middle of the day, there are always freshness challenges by the time you dig in. Tomatoes or jelly soak through the bread making it soggy, ingredients slide around, and the whole experience can become very disappointing. While it's difficult to guarantee your carefully crafted sandwich will survive perfectly till meal time, wrapping it in parchment or wax paper helps prevent or minimize many of these issues.

If you've ever grabbed a breakfast sandwich or classic chopped cheese from a bodega, you may already be familiar with this hack. Similarly, if you're from an older generation, you may remember parents or grandparents packing sandwiches wrapped in wax paper for lunch; even most fast-food sandwiches come wrapped in paper these days. Paper helps avoid trapped moisture, absorbs grease, and offers a tidy, built-in sleeve holder for enjoying your meal and keeping your hands mess-free. It also looks professional when well-wrapped, complementing all your hard work making the sandwich just right.

If you've taken the time to craft a perfect BLT with just the right bread, it makes sense to wrap it properly for transport and storage. Here's the thing: Most of us reach immediately for a zip-top plastic bag, peel off some cling wrap, or lay the sandwich in a hard-sided plastic box. The last one does a good job of protecting the valuable contents from getting squished, but all of these options have limitations. The airtight nature of plastic means it's trapping moisture. The sandwich can't breathe, particularly on warm days, and as anyone who has tucked into a bagged PB&J knows, the bread is pretty much mush by the end of the day. Aluminum foil is similarly impermeable, risking the same soggy issues.

Instead, reach for parchment paper. It offers a host of advantages: First, it doesn't trap moisture and allows the bread to breathe without going stale. Second, it absorbs extra juices and grease that may leak out, so your bread doesn't get as soggy. Finally, wrapping it well in paper helps keep all the ingredients in place (as opposed to baggies or boxes where things can slide around). Parchment paper also offers an advantage over wax paper or butcher paper as a sandwich wrapper: It's oven-safe. You can reheat a meatball sub or meatloaf sandwich without unwrapping it.

It's worth knowing how best to wrap a sandwich, which holds everything in place without tape when folded just right. Start by pulling off a 12-by-16-inch piece of paper (or buy pre-cut baking sheets). Set the sandwich in the center and bring the shorter ends of the paper together. Make clean, creased, 1-inch folds until you have folded the paper up against the sandwich. Now you can either fold the ends under the sandwich or get fancy and tuck the top and bottom halves of the ends in envelope folds.

But don't stop there. Deli pros know that cutting a wrapped sandwich in half is best: It makes it easier to bite into, handle, and save a portion, plus each half now has its own container for holding without getting your hands messy. Roll the paper back as you eat, and you can catch errant crumbs and bits of filling. For best results, slice the sandwich, wrapper and all, in half, then wrap a second piece of paper around it. Extra-moist ingredients such as pickles, or optional toppings such as jalapeños, can be wrapped between the two layers, keeping them separate from the sandwich until lunchtime. Or, for hot sandwiches, swap out the outer paper for aluminum foil. It insulates everything and keep it warm longer.