How to make the perfect sandwich with your holiday leftovers

Context sandwiches are available. Unexpected moon formations are made between two pieces of bread, a bun or perhaps a pita, from last night’s dinner.

Then there are the intentional sandwiches, taken from careful planning and procuring just the right ingredients. Mario Lamas, owner and operator of Mario’s Butcher Shop in Orange County, is the king of them all.

Mario Llamas, owner of Mario’s Butcher Shop. The chef is known for his sandwiches, including steak sandwiches and smoked bologna.

(Mario’s Butcher Shop)

In the four years since he opened his butcher shop, in the corner of a dingy strip mall in Newport Beach, he’s built a following for his house-cured and smoked meats and a growing menu of stellar sandwiches. Lamas treats and ages Coppa, Superista and Genoa salami for Italian subs. He smokes and steams his pastrami.

After working as a chef in Guadalajara and Mexico City, he returned to the United States and began an apprenticeship at West Coast Prime Meats, the largest meat distribution company in Southern California.

“I come from a steakhouse background and when the chefs and cooks cut the meat, it’s very different from the butcher,” Lamas says. “I wanted to get into it. I didn’t even know I was going to open a butcher shop.”

He worked at West Coast Prime Meats for 10 months, then the pandemic hit.

“I talked to a friend who knew I loved charcuterie,” he says. “I was making charcuterie in Mexico. He said, ‘Why don’t you open a butcher shop and a sandwich shop?’

Lamas originally planned to have a butcher shop selling a few sandwiches. But after introducing the public to his pastrami sandwiches, burgers and steak sandwiches, customers started asking for more.

Mario Lamas grills chimichurri on a steak sandwich at Mario’s Butcher Shop in Newport Beach.

(Ron De Angelis/For The Times)

His steak sandwich is a thing of beauty, second only to what an Argentinian friend made at his sandwich shop in Guadalajara. When Mario’s first opened, Lamas used whatever cuts he had in his butcher’s case to make the sandwiches. Demand grew rapidly, and now Llama exclusively sources filet mignon and New York steaks for sandwiches, sometimes going through 60 pounds of meat a day.

He grills his steaks over charcoal, putting in a few white oak logs for a slightly sweet, smoky flavor. Imagine a steakhouse table centerpiece, a perfectly marbled, unseasoned steak that you want to save for special occasions. Llamas takes that steak and turns it into your paper-wrapped bread.

“This is my jam,” he says. “I like grilled meats and Argentinian food.”

Once the steak is mahogany crusted and pink in the middle, he slices the meat and rolls it from Bread Artisan Bakery in Santa Ana, where Lamas sources all of his bread and buns. He adds lettuce and tomato, and slathers both sides of the roll with Kewpie mayonnaise.

“Kewpie with a red top,” he says. “It’s with MSG.”

He crowns the sandwich with a chimichurri he created while working at an Argentine restaurant in Guadalajara. Beef juices are mixed with kewpie and chimichurri for maximum fattening. This is a sandwich that delivers full flavor.

Earlier this year, he expanded the operation with a nearby commissary kitchen, and he took over the idea office next door to build a larger kitchen and storefront for the butcher shop. Now, he serves over 20 different sandwiches and burgers, has a long butcher’s story and a refrigerated section with fresh pasta, sauces and other grab-and-go items. Soon, he will have rotisserie chickens.

Lamas’ sandwich lineup is a combination of his childhood favorites and the sandwiches he loved in Mexico.

The mortadella is an example of the chef’s meticulous dedication to the art of sandwich making.

“Less is definitely more when it comes to sandwiches,” he says.

The llamas start with a crusty roll, slathering both sides with a generous dollop of kewpie mayonnaise. He adds a bed of fresh spinach to the bottom, then rolls the mortadella tightly into cylinders, adding both height and airiness to the sandwich. He slices a slice of provolone cheese on top.

“If we just put the mortadella flat, the sandwich will be flat like a pancake,” he says. “The roll creates air so when you roll it, it’s airy instead of flat.”

Crusty bread crumbles mayonnaise, cheese and what can be two inches of mortadella. The cylindrical shape of the meat allows the sweet, fatty pork to really sing. Then the spinach comes with a different texture and freshness.

At Mario’s Butcher Shop in Newport Beach, a smoked bologna sandwich with mayo, mustard and raw onions and small French fries.

(Myung Jae Chun/Los Angeles Times)

The sandwich that always leaves me a little dumbfounded is the smoked bologna. It’s the meat you grow to love as a child, or the one you grow out of unfamiliarity with, or maybe even hate.

“We’re Mexican and my mom would make beans and stuff like that, but I went over to my friend’s house one day and she had bologna,” she says. “His mom used to cook it in a saucepan and serve it on white bread with fruit. I was like, Mom, can you have bologna too?”

Lamas smokes his bologna with white oak and apple wood for about two hours. He puts the smoked meat on top of the toasted, spongy meat with yellow mustard, a bit of kewpie mayonnaise and slices of raw white onion. This is the sandwich that turned me into a bologna believer.

A double burger from Mario’s Butcher Shop in Newport Beach. Owner Mario Lamas compares the burger to a McDonald’s cheeseburger, if it’s made with the best possible ingredients.

(Jane Harris/Los Angeles Times)

With a holiday behind us, and fast approaching, I asked Llamas to share his leftover sandwich tips. He had many.

For any stray pieces of turkey, he suggests making some sort of Cubano, assuming your holiday spread might include ham spirals.

“Heat up the turkey and the ham and get some good flavored bread and mustard, pickles, and you’ve got to have Swiss cheese,” he says. “Hope you have a panini press so you can press it all together. It’s the perfect post-Thanksgiving sandwich.”

If you are serving prime rib, make a prime rib dip.

“Get some crusty bread for sure, like thick slices, not thin,” says Lamas. “I hope you have some horseradish cream. Slice the prime rib as thin as possible. And I hope you have some jus. Heat the meat in it, put it on a sandwich and add some Swiss cheese.”

And don’t skimp on the mayonnaise. It’s an ingredient that Lamas believes should belong on every sandwich. But his most important advice is to keep it simple. No need to stuff leftovers at the table into a single sandwich.

“Try making a sandwich with just four ingredients,” he says. “If you can do it with four, that’s OK.”