This Reuben Sandwich Strudel is a great way to turn a ‘sandwich’ into a meal! This is a great recipe to use up leftover potatoes or leftovers from this Apple Onion Sauerkraut and Sausage! I made it with sauerkraut right out of the jar but it is would be awesome if you have leftovers. Next time I will plan to have leftovers!
If you have leftovers this recipe comes together rather quickly. If not – you will have a few steps to get the potatoes and sauerkraut prepped but it is worth it!
You won’t need a full package of phyllo dough so you may want to think about how you want to use the rest of the sheets once they are thawed. You might consider making these Phyllo Nests and freezing them for a future meal.
As always..when you are working with phyllo keep a damp towel over the sheets that you are not working with yet so they don’t dry out and crack.
Reuben Sandwiches are so much a part of the Montreal landscape I was surprised to learn that they may have originated in Omaha, Nebraska when Reuben Kulakofsky, a Jewish Lithuanian born grocer made it for a poker group that met at the Blackstone Hotel in Omaha. They eventually made their way on to the Blackstone’s menu but they really took off when a former hotel employee won a national recipe contest with them. There are competing stories of origin involving Reuben’s Deli in New York so we may never know the real story!
The signature parts of a Reuben are rye bread, the corned beef (Montreal substitutes Montreal Smoked Meat), sauerkraut, Swiss Cheese and Russian Dressing. Nowadays Thousand Island Dressing is often substituted for the Russian Dressing.
You can assemble this early in the day and cover the strudel with a damp towel in the fridge.
Feel free to tweak it to suit your tastes!
Ingredients
- 5 sheets phyllo pastry thawed
- cooking spray
- 10 oz Corned Beef slices Or Montreal Smoked Meat or Pastrami slices
- mustard or Thousand Island Dressing
- 26 oz sauerkraut
- 2 yellow onions
- 3 medium potatoes
- 8 oz Swiss cheese shredded
- 3 tsps caraway seeds divided 1 1/2 + 1 1/2 tsps
- 1 Tbsps melted butter
- dill pickles and sour cream on the side optional
Instructions
- Peel and cube potatoes. Boil for about 20 minutes until tender. Drain and set aside.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Drain the sauerkraut. Do NOT Rinse. Chop the onions and add to the sauerkraut in an oven proof casserole. Bake uncovered about 30 minutes.
- Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper. Center a sheet of phyllo pastry on it and spray with cooking spray. Add another sheet and spray again. Continue until you have 5 sheets sprayed.
- Cover the pastry sheets with the meat slices leaving about 2" from the outer edges of the pastry. Drizzle with mustard or Thousand Island Dressing if using.
- Combine the potatoes, sauerkraut mixture and 1 1/2 tsps caraway seeds in a bowl. Spread this mixture along the center of the pastry. Mound it quite high so the edges of the pastry and meat are still clear.
- Top the mound with the Swiss Cheese.
- Fold the short ends of the pasty toward the center. You will have a couple of inches of pastry tucked toward the center. Then carefully fold/roll the long edge toward the other long edge. Turn the roll gently so the final edge is now on the bottom of the roll. This will help keep the roll secured.
- Brush the outside with melted butter and sprinkle with caraway seeds.
- Baked at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. Pastry will be golden brown.
- Slice and serve with dill pickles and dollops of sour cream. Drizzle more mustard or dressing to taste if desired.