Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches

8 servings
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 6 hours
Total Time 6 hours 15 minutes

Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches are easy to make for a crowd or for your lunches and takes just a few ingredients. You’ll never buy deli pastrami again!

Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches are easy to make for a crowd or for your lunches and takes just a few ingredients. You'll never buy deli pastrami again!Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches are the latest slow cooker sandwiches in my new series of recipes. With crazy busy lives we’ve been trying to come up with ways to make lunchtime an easier meal to prepare for. My husband works in a normal office setting so any style of lunch works for him, but I need something portable. When you’re in a kitchen working you need to be able to eat quickly, so sandwiches have been my go-to meal for a while now.

Some of the skepticism I’ve seen about the slow cooker sandwiches is the fact that most people are used to slow cooker sandwiches being full of overcooked falling apart meat. This really doesn’t have to be the case.

I cook the Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches for 6 hours on low instead of 8 to preserve some of the “stays in one piece” quality of the meat. Because of that I can hold up slices of meat from this recipe like this: Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches are easy to make for a crowd or for your lunches and takes just a few ingredients. You'll never buy deli pastrami again!

Most roasts/meats that are slow cooked would break in half if you tried to hold up a slice, but by cooking it shy of the standard 8 hours most people cook on low for you’ll have slices of meat that are easy to cut and not as messy to eat. Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches are easy to make for a crowd or for your lunches and takes just a few ingredients. You'll never buy deli pastrami again!

Your Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches aren’t going to win any sort of a beauty competition in the slow cooker, it won’t even look like that gorgeous pink color exists in the slow cooker anymore because of all the black pepper coating the outside. Inside you’ll still have plenty of moisture, but if you want to have that true steamed flavor to the pastrami I would suggest adding some slices to a plate, covering with a wet paper towel and microwaving for 30 second increments until you’re satisfied.

Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches are easy to make for a crowd or for your lunches and takes just a few ingredients. You'll never buy deli pastrami again!

If you’re keeping track here are the other slow cooker sandwiches we’ve got so far:

There’s more on the way too, I’ve made and photographed another 10 slow cooker sandwiches, so if you’re enjoying this series definitely stick around, more are coming!

Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches are easy to make for a crowd or for your lunches and takes just a few ingredients. You'll never buy deli pastrami again!

Some things to note with these Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches:

  • Unlike most roast sized pieces of meat you are not supposed to brown this one.
  • If your spices aren’t adhering well to the meat try rubbing some oil on it, I use canola.
  • Let the meat cool then gently wrap in foil and cool completely in the fridge, this well make for easier slicing.
  • We’re using corned beef here to skip the curing process but corned beef is super salty, so we’re soaking the meat. You can skip the soaking if you don’t mind the extra salt flavor, but it won’t taste quite as much like pastrami.
  • I grind my own black peppercorns for this recipe, if you use standard black pepper it will taste AWFUL. Let me say that again, please don’t use normal black pepper, that has been grinded down much too finely for this recipe. It will be inedible. Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches are easy to make for a crowd or for your lunches and takes just a few ingredients. You'll never buy deli pastrami again!

Tools used in the making of these Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches:
Spice Grinder: Perfect for grinding spices, just don’t switch back and forth between coffee and spices, your coffee will taste awful.
Brining Container: I used this to brine meats because the size prevents having to cram larger cuts into smaller spaces and deform them. Also, the lid snaps on very tightly, I’ve never had a leaking issue.
Spice Rack – I buy spices in bulk from local grocers and from Penzey’s. It’s less expensive and significantly higher quality than buying the jars individually but I ended up being left with tons of little bags of spices. Enter the spice rack.
Slow Cooker: Love this slow cooker and how programmable it is, it has been a workhorse for me… until…
My New Slow Cooker: This recipe was made in this slow cooker. For larger roasts I also brown the meat in the insert and not lose a bunch of the flavor by transferring the meat and leaving the browned bits behind. If you’re thinking of a new slow cooker, consider it if your budget is open.

 

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Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches

Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches are easy to make for a crowd or for your lunches and takes just a few ingredients. You'll never buy deli pastrami again!
Yield 8 servings
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 6 hours
Total Time 6 hours 15 minutes
Course Main, Sandwich
Cuisine American
Author Sabrina Snyder

Ingredients
 

  • 5 pounds raw corned beef in a package in your meat department
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup black peppercorns
  • 2 tablespoons coriander seeds
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 8 slices Provolone Cheese
  • 8 hoagie rolls
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 4 tablespoons spicy brown mustard

Instructions

  • Soak the corned beef in a bowl of water with it's spice packet and brown sugar for 24 hours.
  • Using a coffee grinder, add the peppercorns and coriander and grind until coarsely chopped, like a very coarse pepper mill would create. You should see the pieces of black pepper individually.
  • Mix the pepper and coriander seeds on a large plate
  • Dry off the meat once soaked and roll it in the spice mixture.
  • Cook on low in your slow cooker for 6 hours.
  • Wait for the meat to cool in the refrigerator, then slice thinly or use a deli slicer for even thinner cuts.
  • If desired you can steam before adding to your sandwich for the true deli experience.
  • Cut the hoagie rolls open and spread with butter before toasting.
  • Layer cheese, then pastrami and finally spicy brown mustard.

Nutrition

Calories: 918kcal | Carbohydrates: 48g | Protein: 54g | Fat: 55g | Saturated Fat: 20g | Cholesterol: 179mg | Sodium: 4103mg | Potassium: 925mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 17g | Vitamin A: 335IU | Vitamin C: 76.9mg | Calcium: 263mg | Iron: 16mg
Keyword: Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches

Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches are easy to make for a crowd or for your lunches and takes just a few ingredients. You'll never buy deli pastrami again!

 

Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches are easy to make for a crowd or for your lunches and takes just a few ingredients. You'll never buy deli pastrami again!
Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches are easy to make for a crowd or for your lunches and takes just a few ingredients. You'll never buy deli pastrami again!
Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches are easy to make for a crowd or for your lunches and takes just a few ingredients. You'll never buy deli pastrami again!
Slow Cooker Pastrami Sandwiches are easy to make for a crowd or for your lunches and takes just a few ingredients. You'll never buy deli pastrami again!

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. If you enjoyed the recipe and would like to publish it on your own site, please re-write it in your own words, and link back to my site and recipe page. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

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Comments

  1. Your recipe calls for cooking a corned beef, then calls it pastrami in the sandwich making part. Corned beef and pastrami are 2 different curing processes for beef brisket, not interchangeable.

    “What is the Difference between Corned Beef and Pastrami?

    Both corned beef and pastrami are made of brisket, the difference lies in the cut of beef and the way the meat is processed. Pastrami is from the highly fatty navel end of the brisket. And while both corned beef and pastrami are cured in a salt brine, corned beef is only boiled afterwards whereas pastrami is also smoked.

  2. What is the Difference between Corned Beef and Pastrami?

    Both corned beef and pastrami are made of brisket, the difference lies in the cut of beef and the way the meat is processed. Pastrami is from the highly fatty navel end of the brisket. And while both corned beef and pastrami are cured in a salt brine, corned beef is only boiled afterwards whereas pastrami is also smoked.

  3. I looked at your recipe for slow cooker pastrami sandwiches and I’m confused. You say to cook the corned beef, cool it and “Layer cheese, then pastrami and finally spicy brown mustard”. Pastrami and corned beef are two different cured meats.

  4. Hi Sabrina, we did the soak in a “bowl of water” with the seasoning packet and brown sugar. We wondered about the amount of water, but decided to go with just enough to cover the entire roast. This morning, we dried it off, rubbed it with the ground pepper and coriander. I noticed the 1/2 cup of water in the ingredients list but saw no reference to it in the instructions. We assumed it was to go in the slow cooker. Our slow cook is underway
    and I just noticed that others inquired about the half cup of water and made their own assumptions as we did. One could also guess the half cup of water is for use in the steaming process. Would you mind clarifying where and how the half cup of water should be used, please?

  5. Greetings you don’t have mentioned the size of ingredients in the slow cooker and what proportions for peppercorn and

    1. I’m not sure I understand the question. I have quantities and measurements of ingredients in the recipe card above. If you would like to clarify or troubleshoot, shoot me an email at contact @ dinnerthendessert .com

  6. How long does it need to to steam? I already have everything to do this up with except the provolone. I haven’t had one of these sandwiches in ages and I’m well over due.Thank you. ~D

    1. You’re soaking it to get the salt out of it. That’s why we’re only using a spice packet and brown sugar. Pastrami has a much lower salt content than corned beef. Hope this clear it up for you. 🙂

  7. This is fantastic! I used a flat cut because that’s what I had. So, so good. This is def going into my sandwich collection of recipes. Thank you!

        1. Living where there is no Pastrami I am in the process of making this… Gingers crossed!

          Just wondering if you found a use for all that peppery juice at the bottom of the slow cooker? Seems a shame to waste it.

          Might freeze it in cubes and use as a base for soups and stews (used sparingly as is very spicy). May have overground the pepper!

  8. Two questions: 1) Do you buy the Flat or Tip Corned Beef to use in this recipe? 2) Would it be possible to have the meat cutter slice the meat, and ‘tie’ it? …before the seasoning & cooking and crock pot, to get that final “yummy” result. I love hot Pastrami sandwiches! (but I don’t like thick slices and doubt I could slice them as thin as I like – I don’t have a “deli slicer”.)

    1. I used a point cut with this recipe. I see what you’d like to accomplish with having the butcher slice and tie but I’m not sure it would work with this slow cooker version. The meat really does fall apart while cooking so I would suggest cooking it about 2 hours less than recommended and then you’d be able to slice it yourself. If you wait for it to cool completely and then slice, you’ll be able to better handle it.

  9. That looks amazing! I’m a huge sandwich fan and pastrami is one of my favorites! And I checked out that slow cooker you recommended…that might have to be my next purchase…I’d love to have one that browns the meat first!

  10. That black pepper crust looks amazing!! I’m not usually a pastrami girl but I am craving this sandwich right now.