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Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders

by 145 Comments

The classic Vietnamese sandwich made healthy, gluten-free, & vegan. Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders are a hearty, spicy, & veggie-packed recipe you can serve up for lunch, dinner, or a party!

Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders | Strength and Sunshine @RebeccaGF666 The classic Vietnamese sandwich made healthy, gluten-free, & vegan. Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders are a hearty, spicy, & veggie-packed recipe you can serve up for lunch, dinner, or a party!

I had to make sure I got out my last grilled recipe before Labor Day! And if you’re into the trends, you’d know that any type of Asian dish is a wide-reaching favorite of many. You know I’m a fan, and a failed fan at that! I never made it to that Thai restaurant I told you about. Summer bucket list FAIL! At least we’re expanding our Far East taste buds to Vietnam this time!

Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders | Strength and Sunshine @RebeccaGF666 The classic Vietnamese sandwich made healthy, gluten-free, & vegan. Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders are a hearty, spicy, & veggie-packed recipe you can serve up for lunch, dinner, or a party!

I was kind of blown away when I did some research into the classic Banh Mi sandwich. “Bánh mì” is actually a term used for Vietnamese bread, usually a wheat baguette. Now-a-days, in the Western world, when we say Banh mi, we’re 90% of the time referring to the classic, spicy, “meat-filled”, street food sandwich. Now if you might have guessed, this classic sandwich, usually with pork, mayo, and wheat bread, leaves us Strength and Sunshine eaters in a bit of a pickle.

 Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders | Strength and Sunshine @RebeccaGF666 The classic Vietnamese sandwich made healthy, gluten-free, & vegan. Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders are a hearty, spicy, & veggie-packed recipe you can serve up for lunch, dinner, or a party!

I never leave you hanging, though! Recreate, remake, reignite! Caveat, I’ve never had a real Banh Mi, but with my pre-recipe development research, I think I nailed this one down pretty well! It’s all about some good bread, pickled veggies, some “meatiness”, and that spicy “not” mayo sauce! No to mention we’re busting out the grill pan for this one! (Grilled food = good food…always!)

Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders | Strength and Sunshine @RebeccaGF666 The classic Vietnamese sandwich made healthy, gluten-free, & vegan. Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders are a hearty, spicy, & veggie-packed recipe you can serve up for lunch, dinner, or a party!

For out “meatiness” what better ingredient to use than eggplant! Grilled eggplant is one of my favorite ways to serve it up and its texture is so hearty, creamy, and delicious. A perfect stable base for this killer plant-based Banh Mi!

Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders | Strength and Sunshine @RebeccaGF666 The classic Vietnamese sandwich made healthy, gluten-free, & vegan. Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders are a hearty, spicy, & veggie-packed recipe you can serve up for lunch, dinner, or a party!

For the “quick” pickled vegetables I used some crunchy carrot sticks and celery just soaked in some seasoned vinegar while prepping the rest of the sandwich ingredients. Daikon radish is commonly used in the Banh Mi, but confession, I actually don’t care for daikon very much. Celery does the job much better in my opinion and this is the Strength and Sunshine Banh Mi anyway…so we’re rolling with it!

Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders | Strength and Sunshine @RebeccaGF666 The classic Vietnamese sandwich made healthy, gluten-free, & vegan. Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders are a hearty, spicy, & veggie-packed recipe you can serve up for lunch, dinner, or a party!

The other essential veggie components used in a Banh Mi sandwich are cucumbers, cilantro, and jalapenos! I’ve always loved this combination of vegetables in the sandwich. The cucumber (and pickled veggies) balance out the heat of the raw jalapeno slices. It’s what I’d call a well thought out sandwich! If you can’t handle too much heat, you can cut super thin slices of the jalapeno or thicker if you want to bring the fire!

Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders | Strength and Sunshine @RebeccaGF666 The classic Vietnamese sandwich made healthy, gluten-free, & vegan. Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders are a hearty, spicy, & veggie-packed recipe you can serve up for lunch, dinner, or a party!

Last component and maybe the most important. The “mayo” sauce! Since we are not mayo people here, I channel my inner tah-ayo (i.e. tahini mayo)! Just mix some tahini, sriracha, and coconut aminos together and you have a perfect sauce for the sandwiches! So with all of these components together you get one fantastic vegan Banh Mi. Let’s not forget the bread, though! I used some Bread SRSLY sourdough sandwich rolls! Yes, we even brought sourdough into this recipe! I grilled the buns a bit to give them some crunch and WOW, your first bite of these sandwich sliders will turn you into a Banh Mi fan, however unconvential this recipe may be!

Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders

Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders | Strength and Sunshine @RebeccaGF666 The classic Vietnamese sandwich made healthy, gluten-free, & vegan. Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders are a hearty, spicy, & veggie-packed recipe you can serve up for lunch, dinner, or a party!

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Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders

The classic Vietnamese sandwich made healthy, gluten-free, & vegan. Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders are a hearty, spicy, & veggie-packed recipe you can serve up for lunch, dinner, or a party!

  • Author: Rebecca Pytell
  • Yield: 4 1x
  • Category: Main, Sandwich
  • Cuisine: Vietnamese
Scale

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. In a small bowl, combine the pickled vegetable ingredients are let sit for 45-60 minutes.
  2. For the grilled eggplant, rub the sliced rounds with the chili paste and spices. Grill on an oiled non-stick grill pan for 5 minutes on each side.
  3. You can also grill the sandwich rolls at this time. Slice them and grill sliced side down for 5 minutes.
  4. For the spicy “mayo” sauce, combine all sauce ingredients in a small bowl and mix well.
  5. To assemble the sliders, in this order, take a bottom grilled roll half, spread on some of the sauce, 2 slices of the grilled eggplant, 2 slices of cucumber, 2 jalapeno slices, some of the pickled veggies, 1 tablespoon of cilantro, and then spread another thin layer of the sauce on the top grilled roll half before closing up the slider.
  6. Repeat for the rest of the sandwiches!

Nutrition

  • Serving Size: 1

 Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders | Strength and Sunshine @RebeccaGF666 The classic Vietnamese sandwich made healthy, gluten-free, & vegan. Grilled Eggplant Banh Mi Sliders are a hearty, spicy, & veggie-packed recipe you can serve up for lunch, dinner, or a party!

Lunch, dinner, or even for a party if you make a large batch, these sliders will be a huge hit! They’d also make a fantastic tailgating, football season dish to serve up in the next few months! Labor Day is next Monday so that maybe the time too! Actually no, the time is NOW! Make these NOW! I want to see you grilled these Banh Mi sliders up! I know these will make you a new fan of the Vietnamese cuisine if you’ve never tried it before. Gotta start somewhere and these sliders are where to start!

So tell me:

+ Ever have a Banh Mi? What kind?

+ Any favorite Vietnamese dishes?

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Comments

  3. Marie says

    Okay, these seriously look incredible! I love grilled eggplant so the rest of the ingredients are just gravy for me. Thanks for sharing your recipe!

    Reply

  4. Gin says

    I’ve never had a bahn mi sandwich, but if I do I’m going to have yours. It sounds delish and I love the sound of the picked veggies with that spicy sauce!

    Reply

  8. Robin says

    Bread Srsly does make really yummy GF sourdough. I tried it for my first time when they donated a bunch of rolls to our vegan prom. Have you tried making your own buns? I kinda want to try…

    Reply

  12. Emily says

    Wow Rebecca you must do so much research on different foods; how do you get all these ideas? 🙂 I would love to just watch and learn from you cooking for allergies some day.

    Reply

  20. Tiffany says

    This looks SO good! I love bahn mis and I am loving the slider version! Absolutely love the healthy ‘mayo’ sauce that you created. I need to try this ASAP!

    Reply

  27. Michelle @ Vitamin Sunshine says

    What a great idea Rebecca 🙂 Gluten free and not eating pork or mayo, I’ve never had a Bahn Mi either! But this looks better than most. Eggplant is the perfect addition– I have had eggplant taco meat on my recipe creation list for years and have never had it turn out quite right… should try again!

    Reply

  31. Alexa says

    Oh Rebecca, if only I liked eggplant! But you know what? I think a portobello mushroom would look and taste pretty good in its place 🙂 What do you think?

    Reply

  35. kimmythevegan says

    Ah! You’ve found Bread SRSLY! Aren’t they amazing! I love it.
    I’ve been hearing about Banh Mi sandwiches, but haven’t tried one yet. I love the flavour combinations you’ve taken with your recipe! It sounds great =)

    Reply

    • Rebecca @ Strength and Sunshine says

      I “found” them a very long time ago, haha!
      It’s just the classic combo…sans meat!

      Reply

  41. Wendy says

    I absolutely love this! I had Banh Mi Sandwiches on my to-do list for next month but the recipe I have uses tofu. Since I can’t have soy I was looking for an option and this sounds like a great one!

    Reply

  49. Sondra Barker says

    I’ve had the classic, street style Banh Mi sandwiches before and they were very delicious, but to see a much healthier alternative that looks so tasty is even better. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply

  57. Clover @ Real Food Renegades says

    Hi Rebecca! I just recently found your blog (and recently started mine too)! I’m so impressed with all your gluten-free and allergy-free recipes, being allergic to dairy and soy and sensitive to gluten. I’ll be sure to be visiting often to see what you cook up! 🙂

    I adore Vietnamese food, though I’ve never tried a banh mi (because of the aforementioned food issues 😉 ) My favourite food ever is pho, which is usually gluten, dairy, and soy-free! Yay!

    Reply

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Meet Rebecca

Hey there, welcome to Strength and Sunshine! I’m Rebecca and I’m so glad you’re here! This is your go-to destination for delicious, fun, and (mostly) healthy gluten-free and allergy-free recipes, tips & tricks, advice, as well as celiac and food allergy coaching services!

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