Get ready for a flavor meltdown with these lip-smacking Panini Recipes.
From avocado veggie panini to blue cheese steak panini, these recipes redefine the art of sandwich-making, turning each bite into a toasty, irresistible delight. These are not your regular sandwiches, these are grownup masterpieces!
1. Avocado Veggie Panini
Perfect for vegetarians or anyone who’s looking to get more vegetables into their diet, this avocado veggie panini is creamy and delicious. It’s also a great way to get rid of any extra veggies that are about to go bad.
2. Pressed Breakfast Burritos
This isn’t technically a panini, but this recipe can be made with a panini press. Pressing burritos is a great way to get the tortillas a perfect crispy brown and make sure the whole burrito is heated evenly.
3. Leftover Thanksgiving Turkey Pesto Panini
We’ve all found ourselves in the position where you have to try and use up your leftovers before they go bad. With this recipe, you can easily repurpose leftover turkey from Thanksgiving into a delicious pesto panini!
4. Beef Meximelt
Similar to the burrito recipe we listed above, this Taco Bell-inspired recipe is a great recipe for weeknights and quick cravings. The heat from the panini press makes the cheese perfectly melty and even more satisfying to eat.
5. Chicken Caprese Pesto Panini
Chicken Caprese is a classic flavor palette that easily translates to a panini-style sandwich. Grilled chicken is also a great way to make healthier choices at lunchtime, especially compared to fried chicken options out there.
6. Mushroom and Goat Cheese Panini
Mushrooms are a great veggie for sandwiches because they can take on so many great flavors without being too overpowering. This recipe lets the goat cheese shine and keeps it simple with tomato, basil, and arugula as the other toppings.
7. Italian-Style Panini
Toasting up a sandwich that’s filled with mortadella, mozzarella, prosciutto, soppressata, and salami is decadent and perfect for lunch. You could even put some deli mustard on the bread and add a little bit of a kick to the sandwich!
8. Pesto Panini with Fresh Mozzarella and Tomato
Fresh mozzarella is an amazing sandwich ingredient and is so good when it’s in a perfectly toasty sandwich. This panini is practically a caprese salad inside delicious, crispy sourdough (perfect for paninis).
9. Strawberry Nutella Panini
Who said that all paninis had to be savory? Sweet paninis are a great variation on PB+J or for a sweet lunch or a midnight snack. When the Nutella is heated up, it gets gooey and tastes like hot chocolate.
10. Pepperoni Pizza Panini
This recipe is so simple and a great way to enjoy pizza without baking a whole pie or ordering out. All you need is to spread pizza sauce or pasta sauce instead of other condiments. Make sure you use the fresh mozzarella too, so you get the ultimate cheese pull!
11. Turkey Panini
Another turkey panini recipe, this one uses cranberry sauce and gravy to create a nice balance of sweet, acidic, savory, and rich. It’s another good recipe to use when you need to get rid of leftover turkey.
12. Caprese Panini with Avocado Basil Pesto
Caprese paninis are always a great choice, but this recipe includes avocado pesto. Avocados add creaminess and smooth out pesto recipes, sometimes even countering too-garlicky pesto.
13. Eggplant, Prosciutto, and Pesto Pressed Sandwiches
Eggplant, prosciutto, and pesto all go so well together; they could be the perfect Italian trifecta. Ciabatta and focaccia bread are perfect for this sandwich because they have all kinds of cracks and crevasses that can hold olive oil, herbs, and pesto.
14. Blue Cheese Steak and Red Onion Jam Panini
Red onion jam is the kind of topping that enhances everything about steaks and other beef dishes. Using it on a sandwich like this is super simple and you can even make it in bulk for use at other meals.
15. Hawaiian Grilled Cheese
This panini is inspired by the flavors of a Hawaiian pizza; with Canadian bacon, pineapple rings, and Monterrey Jack cheese melting together. The pineapple is just acidic enough to cut through the richness of the cheese and bacon, making it perfectly balanced.
16. Chicken Cordon Bleu Paninis
Who doesn’t love a rich and satisfying Cordon Bleu? This take on the classic dish uses fried chicken cutlets to get the extra protein and also help everything lay flat. This is very similar to the Croque Monsieur, but it has a different set of cheeses.
17. Mozzarella and Feta Pita Grilled Cheese
Perfect for anyone who follows the Mediterranean diet or who just wants something simple and light for the summer, this grilled cheese recipe comes together so easily. Pita pockets also hold up super well on a panini press!
18. Tuna Melt Recipe
Making a tuna melt is so much easier when you have a panini press. Not only can you get the bread toasty and crispy without worrying too much about the tuna getting too hot, but it also makes the cheese melt perfectly and bind everything together.
19. Cuban Sandwich Recipe
Cubanos are an iconic sandwich, and toasting them with a panini press makes a world of difference. Marinated, roasted pork is a great sandwich ingredient that pairs so well with Swiss cheese and Cubanos’ iconic dill pickles.
20. Roasted Tomato Caprese and Prosciutto Sandwich
This recipe requires a little extra work to roast the tomatoes, but you could also use jarred sun-dried tomatoes to speed up the process. Burrata can also be swapped in for the fresh mozzarella and give it an even creamier bite.
21. Caprese Sandwich
Another caprese sandwich recipe, this one uses a ton of balsamic vinegar to make this flavor profile shine. You can even use all kinds of flavored balsamic vinegar to get something a bit more complex.
22. Chipotle Chicken Avocado Melt
This is a copycat recipe for the Panera Chipotle Chicken Avocado Melt, so if you want this treat at home, this is the panini for you! It even has instructions on how to make a homemade chipotle sauce that you can use on everything.
23. Reuben Sandwich
The Reuben is another classic, iconic lunch sandwich. These are usually made with pan-toasted and crisped bread, but a panini press makes clean-up so much easier, especially if you use a lot of homemade Russian dressing.
24. Grilled Caprese Sandwich
Our final caprese sandwich keeps itself super simple and lets the ingredients shine. When you use less, you need to use higher-quality ingredients and let them speak for themselves. Less is more with sandwiches like this.
25. Curried Chicken Panini
Finally, we get to our curried chicken panini recipe. This is essentially a curry chicken salad sandwich, which, when pressed, comes out incredible. You can even add some mango chutney to balance out the creaminess.
Making sandwiches into paninis is a great way to heat up and transform typical recipes into something magical. Panini presses also make clean-up simple and give sandwiches the iconic grill marks that come from the machine. Panini presses make sandwiches come together in record time any time of the week. Give these recipes a try whenever you’re in a pinch!
