Simple Sandwiches with Figs, Cheese, and Prosciutto According to Ina Garten’s Recipe
Ina Garten has a new cookbook on the way, and true to form, she’s already given fans a taste of what’s inside before it even hits shelves.
The book, arriving in stores on October 20th, is built entirely around the idea that a meal can be both effortless and genuinely impressive, and one of the lunch recipes she previewed makes that case perfectly.
The Recipe She Revealed Early
Ahead of the book’s release, Garten shared one of its lunch recipes directly with fans: an open-faced summer sandwich built on figs, blue cheese, and prosciutto. It looks like the kind of dish that took real effort, but by her own account, it comes together with no actual cooking involved beyond a few minutes in the toaster.
She shared the recipe in a short video, walking through each layer before finishing the sandwich with a slow drizzle of honey. It’s exactly the kind of dish she’s built her reputation on: a handful of good ingredients, arranged with a little care, that end up looking far more elegant than the effort required.
Starting With the Bread
The base is a thick slice of crusty bread, ideally fresh sourdough, or what she simply calls good bread. The slice should be cut to a fairly standard sandwich thickness, since anything too thick makes the finished sandwich awkward to bite into.
From there, the bread gets toasted until golden brown, either in a toaster or in a hot pan if the slices are too large to fit. This step is really the only actual cooking involved in the entire recipe.
Building the Layers
Once the bread is toasted, a layer of blue cheese gets spread across the top.
For anyone who finds blue cheese too intense on its own, she suggests softening the flavor by blending it with mascarpone or ricotta, or simply reaching for a milder cheese instead, though the bold, sharp flavor paired with sweet fig and salty prosciutto is really what makes the combination work.
Fresh, ripe figs come next, sliced about three millimeters thick and layered so they slightly overlap one another.
Arranging them this way isn’t just about presentation, it also makes sure every single bite actually includes a piece of fig. When fresh figs aren’t in season, a good fig jam works as a reasonable stand-in.
Prosciutto goes on last, draped loosely over the top rather than laid flat, which gives the sandwich a bit of natural height and texture.
The finishing touch is a generous drizzle of honey poured slowly over the entire sandwich just before serving.
When to Serve It
This sandwich is built for warm-weather entertaining, whether that means setting it out alongside other appetizers or simply enjoying one on a porch during a late-summer evening.
It’s a small preview of what to expect from the rest of the cookbook: recipes that lean on a few well-chosen ingredients rather than long ingredient lists or complicated technique.
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