The 4-Ingredient Sandwich Al Roker Made After Coming Home From the Paris Olympics

Al Roker was in Paris for the Olympics with several of his “Today” colleagues and the best plus-one ever, Ina Garten. Their group was the “Olympics team” we Allrecipes foodies might have felt most connected with as they ate their way through the City of Lights. 

Roker had picnics in the park with Hoda Kotb, Savannah Guthrie, and Ina (who had us all salivating with her video of chocolate sauce raining down on profiteroles). His Instagram made us jealous as we saw him sipping a limoncello spritz and eating croissants.

After all that time in Paris, what could he possibly choose to eat once he got home to his own kitchen? He shared that on Instagram, too. Roker went with summer’s simplest and best sandwich, although he bougied it up a bit, perhaps trying to give it a little French-inspired elegance. 

Al Roker’s Elevated (and Somewhat Controversial) 4-Ingredient Tomato Sandwich

The first thing that many tomato lovers make when they pluck the first ripe tomato off their kitchen garden plant or grab a field-ripened tomato at the farmers market is a classic tomato sandwich. This simple combination of white bread, mayo, thick slices of tomato, and a sprinkle of salt, is designed to highlight the flavor of a tomato at its peak. 

If the tomato is perfectly ripe, the sandwich is culinary perfection, but Roker adds an additional ingredient, turning the three-ingredient sandwich into a four-ingredient one that’s not much more work to make.

He posted a photo of the tomato sandwich he ate when he first returned from France with the caption, “Came home and made a #tomato and #anchovies sandwich Mmmm.“

The bread is toasted and looks like it might be sourdough. The sandwich was cut in half so you can see that he went with the basic tomato sandwich formula—white bread, tomato, mayo—and added a layer of anchovies. 

And while several commenters made it clear they did not like his inclusion of the tinned fish, he defended his choice in the comments, saying, “To everyone who doesn’t like anchovies, you are missing out on a burst of salty, umami flavor but to each their own.”

That burst of umami sounds like it would elevate the simple sandwich wonderfully, but we do have a very important question: What type of mayo did Roker use? Did he use Hellmann’s or Duke’s? Or Kewpie to fancy-up this quick-to-make summer culinary creation even more?