World’s Best Smoked Brisket Sandwich with Provolone and French Fried Onions

We consider ourselves BBQ aficionados. We’re natives of Kansas City, Missouri. It’s important to get the Missouri-part correct. Kansas City has the most delicious barbecue anywhere. We understand that some may quibble with this fact. They might favor Memphis or Texas or North Carolina. Sometimes in life, though, people are wrong.

We recently hosted friends for a holiday gathering. We made one of our favorite meals: smoked brisket sous vide. We took a beef brisket, brined it for 12 hours, cooked it sous vide for 36 hours, and smoked it for 3.5 hours. The result was amazing. Delicate. Fragrant. Juicy. Flavorful. It delivered everything that one could ask of a brisket.

To our great surprise and pleasure, we found ourselves with leftovers—maybe because we also roasted a leg of lamb, which was delightful itself and had the very best brown gravy. Yum. Okay. Back to the point. What to do with leftover brisket? Make a sandwich, of course.

Because we know BBQ, and we respect those who make it, we assert the following claim with the upmost humility. We’ve cracked the code by crafting the world’s best smoked brisket sandwich. It has crunch and acid and cheese and—of course—tender, succulent, smoky beef.

Make no mistake: this is big—in significance if not in physical size. Even bigger, though, we’re sharing it with you. We could’ve kept our secret to ourselves. We could’ve copyrighted it or trademarked it or something like that and then made millions of dollars. But no, no. We’re for-the-good-of-everyone kind of people, so we’re posting our recipe.