How to make the Best Braai Broodjie
Recipe and Tips to make the Best Braai Broodjie
Toasted Bacon and Cheese Sandwich in a Tomato Soup
South Africans love a good Braai Broodjie, which for overseas readers not familiar with it, is like a toasted sandwich made on the braai. And if you’re not familiar with the word braai, this is the word South Africans use for a barbecue. There. Now you know the most important South African (Afrikaans) words in our lexicon.
A real braai starts off with some hard wood and a roaring fire. Once the logs have turned to coal, it is time to braai! While South Africans love meat, this vegetarian alternative is a crowdpleaser. And if a braai is not a braai without meat, I challenge you to think differently: a braai is not a braai without a braai broodjie!
Try it yourself using the recipe below. For the ultimate braai broodjie, I have included some tips and tricks, or “Ten Commandments”. And then of course there’s the secret ingredient: bobotie!
Braai Broodjie Ingredients
(quantities depend on how many braai broodjies you want to make)
Sasko white loaf of bread
Mozzarella Cheese (cut into thick slices)
Cheddar Cheese (cut into thick slices)
Red Onion
Sugar
Tomato
Butter
Braai grid
Ground Black Pepper
Smokey Maldon Salt
Braai Broodjie Recipe
The Ten Commandments to making a good Braai Broodjie
Don’t cheat on the ingredients, your weight loss plan is not linked to this sensational national dish!
Get fresh white bread 🍞. Net gewone brood like a Sasko loaf. While it’s fun to try more exotic breads the good ol’ government loaf is your best friend when making a proper braai broodjie.
You need two cheeses, half mozzarella and half cheddar. Again, don’t get fancy here, this is not the Carlton Ritz’s queen’s samie. Thick slices are key!
This little trick is a winner: slice a red onion and pan fry half of it browning the onion with 1 tbsp of sugar to caramelise it. The other half is kept raw for in the broodjie.
Tomato: get a decent well ripened one and then try get as much of the liquid seeds out so to keep your broodjie from going soggy.
Don’t use margarine, you can’t compromise and need to use real salted butter. Don’t be shy when buttering both sides of the slices of fresh bread. As an alternative, you can also use Hellman’s Mayonnaise, it is like flavoured butter!
When layering the ingredients go cheese, tomato, onion and then cheese again (remember to make the cheese slices thick).
Season with ground black pepper and smokey salt before closing the sarmie.
Braai broodjies are a low and slow process, don’t try rush this religious experience. You want oozing cheese, crispy bread and dripping charred bits of cheese that oozed out onto the grid.
Don’t forget to season inside before cooking and then afterwards, ground black pepper and smokey salt.
Above are your Ten Commandments. Stick to these, make no compromise and you will find yourself in braai broodjie heaven!
Taking your Toastie to the Next Level
I try have a roaring fire going whenever as I love cooking outside and food just tastes better when it’s been on the fire, but this is not always realistic, considering Cape Town’s winters, time constraints and hungry children!
The other day I made toasted sandwiches in the pan, and I decided to change things up with the secret ingredient: bobotie mince! This is how I made these delicious toasties:
Use the best sourdough you can find. For this recipe I used some leftover Baard and Co. sour dough
Butter the slices. Don’t skimp on the butter and butter inside and out. Again, you can also use Hellman’s Mayonnaise, it is like flavoured butter!
Cheese and tomatoes and more cheese.
The ingredient that will take your braai broodjie to the next level: leftover bobotie mince. No jokes, It’s divine!
Fry the sarmies (whoops - another South Africanism - sorry for my international followers but you need to get with the lingo) in a pan until the outside is golden brown. Of course you can also use this recipe to make braai broodjies, but in this case I used a frying pan.
Another Roasted Dad tip: Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for ten minute.. the crunch and melted cheese will make you weep.
Enjoy! Please tag me on Instagram if you’ve made this recipe, I’d love to see it!
A Braaibroodjie as part of a Fine Dining Menu
For the Annerkant Die Berg Festival Afrikaans Food & South African Wine Event, I recently served this canapé on arrival.
I explained to the guests that to make the ultimate braaibroodjie you don’t always need to use fancy sour dough, is made with gewone Sasko witbrood, and so that is what I did. To make it fine dining, I cut through the white bread slices with a round cookie cutter, making perfectly round disks. With some butter on the outside and some (Roasted Dad tip incoming) mayonnaise on the inside, the regular braaibroodjie was already juiced up, but I wasn’t done yet. For the filling, I added -of course- cheese, but with a hint to my Dutch wife’s heritage, not regular cheese, but good old cumin cheese (komijnekaas)! As a second ingredient, taking my braai broodjie to epic proportions, I added some bobotie mince and caramelised onions. This canapé was a winner with the guests and it went so well with their welcoming drink: the Merwida Cap Classique Blanc de Blancs.
About Shawn Godfrey
Photo credit: Niki M Photography
Shawn Godfrey is an entrepreneur based in Cape Town, South Africa. After the Covid-19 lockdown saw his business in financial distress, cooking was the creative outlet that helped to keep him sane. To keep track of his recipes, and encourage friends and families to join him, he starts his instagram account The Roasted Dad.
Fast-forward to late 2021 - on a whim Shawn (encouraged by his wife Lianne) enters MasterChef South Africa. It is a crazy time of life: running a 200 people business and struggling to keep it profitable, two small children with a third on the way, and about to move into a new house. But when Shawn gets selected to be one of the 20 contestants participating in the fourth season of MasterChef South Africa, he decides to go all in. Leaving his 7-month-pregnant wife to look after their then three and one-year-old children, he battles it out and comes back home five weeks later with the trophy and a million rand prize money in his pocket.
It all started with an Instagram account, but The Roasted Dad is so much more now. Shawn has stayed his entrepreneurial self and whilst he hosts Private Dinner Parties and Cook-with-Me Demos, does Restaurant Take-Overs, he still runs the lighting company and several other businesses.
On his blog, Shawn shares Restaurant Reviews and Accommodation Reviews, and gives an insight into the wild and wonderful life he leads together with his wife Lianne, and their three children Aiden (6), Olivia (4) and Harvey (2).
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