The Simple Mistake That Can Make Your BLT Sandwich A Soggy Disaster

BLTs are the OG of lunch sandwiches. They're so popular they even have their own Lays flavor. If you've made this sandwich staple before, you're probably aware they aren't as easy to perfect as it seems. Anyone who thinks they can get away with just slapping some bacon, lettuce, and tomato between two pieces of bread and get away with it is gravely mistaken.

In reality, you'll end up with a soggy, unappealing sandwich. This sucks even when eaten fresh, but it gets much worse if you pack it in a lunch box to eat a few hours later after the moisture has thoroughly ruined the bread. You might think, "Why has this happened? What have I done to deserve this?" The answer is you didn't drain the excess grease from the bacon. As we all know, bacon is very fatty, with an average fat content of around 50%. When you cook it, all this fat melts, but a lot of it clings to the surface of the bacon. When you pick up a freshly cooked slice with a pair of tongs, it will literally drip with fat. If you immediately place it onto the sandwich, your bread will absorb all of that fat; creating a soggy mess. Instead, you need to lay it on some paper towels and let that fat drip off. Patting the bacon with a second paper towel isn't a bad idea, either.

Of course, a little bit of bacon grease won't harm anyone. You don't need to go too crazy with the paper towels. Once you're done getting rid of all that excess liquid, you might look at the juicy tomato and freshly washed lettuce and realize something terrible — they're also dripping with moisture. Water rudely clings to lettuce leaves after you've washed them, while flavorful tomato juice leaks all over the place once cut. If you're not careful, all this water will sink into your bread and make even more of a mess than the bacon grease would have.

Unfortunately, the only way to fix this is through extra time and effort. The lettuce needs to be thrown in a salad spinner and whizzed around until you've removed as much water as possible. As you make the sandwich, you should ideally be giving each leaf a pat with a paper towel before you layer it in the sandwich. The tomato is even more troublesome to deal with. My personal tactic is to cut the tomato before doing anything else. Sprinkle the slices with salt and sandwich them between layers of paper towel. By the time I'm done with the bacon and everything else, the paper towel should have had a good 10 minutes to absorb as much liquid as possible.

Some people are more bothered by excess moisture in their food than others. I personally struggle with it a lot and go through a criminal amount of paper towels whenever I cook. If you find tomato slices are too watery for your taste, it's possible to make a BLT without fresh tomatoes.

This doesn't mean skipping the tomato altogether, but rather changing its form. Alternatives include sun-dried tomatoes, salsa, marinara, tomato chutney, tomato purée, or plain old ketchup. Thoroughly grilling fresh tomato slices might help, as the heat will cause plenty of moisture to evaporate. As long as you have tomatoes in there in some way or another, you can call your creation a BLT. If you're interested in levelling up your recipe even more, the next step is learning how to choose the perfect bacon for a BLT. Texture is the main concern — you want bacon that crisps well and doesn't leave you with any chewy, stubborn fat that'll pull out the whole slice when you try and take a bite.