- [Thee Burger Dude] Hey
everybody, it's Thee Burger Dude.
And today, I wanna show you how I make
a California Cheesesteak.
This is based off of California burrito,
which has fries, carne asada, cheese,
guacamole, and sour cream,
only it's in cheesesteak form.
And this is less of a recipe,
and more of me just
having fun in the kitchen,
and in the process, probably
pissing off a lot of people
from Philadelphia and San Diego.
But who cares?
The sandwich was super
delicious, so let's get it going.
We're gonna start off with our vegan meat.
We've got these Gardein
Homestyle Beefless Tips.
But you can also use some Beyond Meat
or any old plant-based meat that you like.
Just make sure you freeze
it, cut it into strips,
and you're gonna cook and chop
it up to your desired size.
You don't want it to be totally frozen.
You just want it to be firm
enough that when you slice it,
it'll retain its shape.
So go ahead and choose your fighter.
And in the meantime, we're
gonna get our guacamole ready.
So I've got an avocado here,
and I wanted to show you
all how big that pit was,
and that means bad luck, and
there's proof right there.
'Cause the first thing I
did was I dropped my avocado
and didn't get it in the bowl.
So I think that's scientifically proving
that a big pit will give you a
bad luck, but it's all right.
We're gonna season this
with some garlic salt,
then we're also gonna hit it
with a little bit of lime
juice, and that's it.
That is the three ingredients
that I use for my guacamole.
I'm gonna mash it up
with this potato masher.
And these things are very handy.
They can do more than just mash potatoes,
as you can see here.
So just go ahead and mash it
to your desired consistency.
I like mine to be a little bit chunky.
And then go ahead and give that a taste.
And I decided mine needed a
little bit more garlic salt.
And in addition to
that, I'm also gonna add
a little bit of this chipotle powder.
Give it a little smokey
and a little bit of spice.
Mix that up again, give it a taste.
And once it tastes good to ya,
go ahead and set it aside
in the refrigerator.
And then we're gonna pull out
a little bit of vegan butter,
and we're just gonna let
that sit at room temperature,
to get nice and soft.
While that's happening
we're gonna get an onion.
And if you can get one
of these cool new onions,
they explode and chop themselves.
Otherwise, you're gonna go ahead
and just have to do it
the old-fashioned way.
Next up, we got our plant-based meat,
the Gardein Beefless Tips.
And I'm gonna go ahead and
give these a good chop.
And if I could do this over again,
I wouldn't let them thaw all the way,
because as you can see here,
they're kind of sticky and
they're just making my life
a little bit harder than it needs to be.
So ideally, these are
still a little bit frozen
so that when you slice into them,
they don't stick to the knife.
But you know, I made it
work, I figured it out.
It's not a big deal.
So once you got those all chopped up,
we're gonna get that butter,
should be nice and soft.
Get a clove of garlic.
And we're gonna just press
that into the butter,
to make a nice garlic butter.
And if you don't wanna use fresh garlic,
you can totally use garlic salt.
You know, if you wanna be
lazy, like I usually am,
this is actually the first
time I ever did this,
I gotta say, it's worth it.
The trouble of pressing
one clove of garlic
is actually worth it.
So once you got that,
go ahead and get your hoagie roll,
and make sure you split it,
but don't go all the way through.
You wanna leave it so that it has a hinge
that holds it together.
And now we're gonna spread
our delicious garlic butter on there,
and we're essentially turning
this into garlic bread,
which is probably the best
sandwich bread you can have.
So grill that on a pan in medium heat
until it looks nice and
golden brown like that.
And then set that aside
while we cook our onions.
So over medium heat with some oil,
go ahead and add your onions to the pan.
And we're just gonna cook these
until they're nice and golden brown.
We don't need to caramelize them.
Add some salt to help them along.
This is gonna take,
you know, I don't know,
eight to 10 minutes or so.
And once they look nice
and golden brown like that,
let's scooch them to one side of the pan.
And in the meantime, we're gonna
get our french fries going.
So I like to do these in the air fryer.
It's a lot faster than
in the conventional oven.
So if you have an air fryer,
I highly recommend it.
Add them to your air fryer,
and then we're gonna give them
a spritzing of some cooking spray,
and then we're gonna shake 'em
and then give 'em another spray.
Shake and spray.
And once that's done,
we're gonna season them
with some good old Lawry Seasoned Salt.
which is pretty dynamite on french fries.
So if you haven't tried it,
I highly suggest giving that a go.
Give them a good old shake one last time.
And then we're gonna
add 'em to the air fryer
and cook them at 380 Fahrenheit,
for about six minutes.
And then you're gonna flip
and repeat once that's done.
And while the fries are cooking,
let's get back to our skillet,
and we're gonna lay down
a little bit more oil,
and now we're gonna add our
plant-based meat to the grill.
And now all we wanna do
is just get this nice and cooked through.
And we wanna see some good browning
on the plant-based meat
that we've got down here.
So cook it over medium heat.
We can add some carne
asada sauce like that,
or we could add some dry rub,
which is what I'm gonna do.
And if you can't find this stuff,
you could use taco seasoning,
or just make a blend of chili
powder and cayenne and cumin.
You can really just kind
of have fun with it.
And once they look very
delicious like that,
I mean, gosh darn it, look at that.
No reason to eat animals anymore.
Look what we got as vegans.
Anyways, once it looks like that,
go ahead and add the onions back in,
and let those guys hang out
and get to know one another.
Once you got them thoroughly mixed,
let's go ahead and
scooch out some portions
that are about the size
of our sandwich bread.
And go ahead and use your bread
to make sure, as I did right there.
And now we're gonna add some vegan cheese
so that we can get it to melt.
I'm adding 1 1/2 slices per mound of meat.
I don't know how I would describe that.
We're gonna add a little bit of water
and then cover to melt the cheese.
So after a couple minutes,
voila, melted cheese.
And now you're basically done.
All you gotta do is assemble the sandwich,
and then it's party time.
So we're gonna get one of
our rolls that we set aside.
And I'm gonna add a little
bit of this vegan sour cream
that I love by Kite Hill.
But go ahead and use whatever you like.
You could use vegan mayo or
aioli, whatever you like.
You can totally customize
this to your preferences.
Next up, we're gonna give
a good slathering of our guacamole,
followed by our french fries,
which should be done by now.
And make sure you get
plenty of fries in there.
And then just add in your
cheesy meat, and you're done.
Now it's time to,
we're gonna go ahead and
slice one of these dudes up
and give it a go.
And man, watching this,
I filmed this yesterday,
and so I'm watching this now,
and I'm jealous of my past
self because this was,
without a doubt, one
of the best sandwiches
I've had in a long time.
It really was a California
burrito in sandwich form.
That's, there's really
no two ways about it.
And to be honest, it didn't
really need anything.
But if I could go back in time,
I might add some pico de
gallo or some hot sauce.
But like I said, it was pretty dynamite.
I mean, that's kind of why I didn't do it.
I just started chowing down
and didn't even think about it.
Look at that bite right there,
with all the cheese and the meat,
the french fries sticking
out, just saying "Bite me."
That's what it's saying
right there, "Bite me."
So I did, I bit it.
You could also go this route
and make some California fries.
I'll go ahead and leave a
link to my cheese sauce recipe
in the description, as
well as a link right here.
But honestly, I really do think
you should try it as a cheesesteak.
I mean, look at this thing.
You got the french
fries, you got the meat,
you got the cheese, you got the guacamole,
the sour cream, all on a hoagie roll.
It is one of the most amazing
sandwiches I've ever had.
And I'm pretty darn sure it'll be
one of the most amazing
sandwiches you ever had.
So if you do make it, please
let me know how it went.
I hope you're all doing great.
And I'll see ya next week.
