Grilled Vegetable Panini

I’m a huge sucker for wintertime food. Soups, stews, anything warm and hearty, and I love cooking with winter produce when it’s in season. But sometimes, I feel like I need a legitimate break from hearty food. I want something that’s not necessarily light – I still want to be full and satisfied after dinner – but something that’s not super rich and cooked for hours on end. Something that reminds me of warmer days, both those passed and those to come. That’s where these grilled vegetable panini come in. They can be just as easily accomplished in the wintertime as they can in the summer (through the use of a grill pan) and that smokey grilled char is the perfect reprieve from hearty wintertime meals.

The best time to make these grilled vegetable panini really would be at the end of the summer, when you have all that fresh bounty (from your garden if you’re like me) just waiting to be turned into delicious meals before it goes bad. But my love of summertime vegetables like eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes could never be limited to just one season.  In fact, the beautiful thing about food is that it can transport you to another season, another time and place. These grilled vegetable panini bring me back to childhood summers in Italy, grabbing quick lunches made up of the freshest vegetables and cheeses and thick crusty breads as nourishment for our long walks about the city.

But the true beauty of these grilled vegetable panini is that they aren’t limited to that summertime feeling. They can be made with virtually any combination of ingredients that you want, putting you smack dab in the middle of any season or time or place. Because of my longing for warmer days, I used summertime ingredients; grilled eggplant and zucchini, roasted red peppers and mozzarella cheese. But for a more wintry vibe you could use braised kale and grilled squash, or grilled mushrooms and cauliflower. Regardless of the veggies used, the real magic in these panini come from two places, and even if you adapt this recipe completely for your own taste (which I definitely encourage you to do) I’ll urge you to keep these two components. The first one is a simple garlic oil (literally just minced garlic and olive oil) that I use to brush all my sliced veggies before I salt and pepper and grill them. You’ll be amazed how much extra flavor this will impart on the vegetables. The second is a quick tomato chutney that I use as a spread for my panini because we all know that every good sandwich needs a spread. And while you could just as easily use your favorite pre-made sandwich spread (like mayo), the cooked down tomatoes in this chutney add the perfect sweetness and acidity to balance the smoky and slightly charred grilled vegetables.

Once your vegetables are grilled, either on the outdoor grill or indoor grill pan, or roasted in the oven if neither of those is an option for you, it’s time to assemble and press your sandwiches. Even without a grill pan or panini maker, pressing a panini is as simple as smushing the sandwich between a nice hot pan on the bottom and some kind of weight on top. This could be anything from a cast iron sandwich press (my choice) to a nice heavy pot or pan to a brick covered in tin foil. Whatever tools you use, make sure you get a good weight on the sandwich and lots of olive oil on the bread so it gets nice and toasty. These grilled vegetable panini really are as easy as that, and they’ll be the perfect reprieve from those hearty wintertime meals.