Z-Man
At Joe's Kansas City the onion rings go inside the brisket sandwich: smoked brisket, smoked provolone, and fried rings sealed under the kaiser, named for a radio host who called himself the Z-Man.
American Barbecue
Tri-Tip Sandwich
Triangular tri-tip grilled over native red oak to medium-rare, sliced thin against a shifting grain, and stacked on a crusted French roll with fresh salsa. Beef treated like a roast, not pulled.
Texas BBQ Brisket Sandwich
Smoked beef brisket on white bread or a bun with pickles and onions; often served with sauce on the side.
St. Louis Pork Steak BBQ Sandwich
Cut from the shoulder, the St. Louis pork steak is grilled for char then braised in Maull's barbecue sauce until it falls apart, served on square white bread whose real job is soaking up the sauce.
South Carolina BBQ Sandwich
Smoked pork shoulder pulled and tossed in Carolina Gold, the yellow mustard sauce of South Carolina's German-settled Midlands, on a soft bun under cool slaw.
Smoked Turkey Sandwich
Hickory or oak-smoked turkey breast sliced and served on bread with cranberry or BBQ sauce; lighter BBQ option found at most Texas BBQ jo...
Sausage Sandwich (Texas BBQ)
At Kreuz Market in Lockhart and Southside in Elgin, the smoked beef sausage link arrives on butcher paper with two slices of white bread. The bread soaks fat. The link does the work.
Pulled Pork Sandwich
Slow-smoked, shredded pork shoulder with BBQ sauce on a bun, often with coleslaw.
Pork Steak Sandwich
Grilled pork steak on bread; St. Louis BBQ staple.
Memphis Rib Tips Sandwich
The rib tip is an off-cut, and the Memphis sandwich built on it does not hide that: cartilage-laced spare-rib trim, smoked soft and sauced, piled on plain white bread that soaks the sauce.
Memphis BBQ Sandwich
Memphis pork sandwich's one structurally definitive call: the slaw goes inside the bun. Hickory-smoked shoulder, thin tomato-vinegar sauce, cold cabbage on top of the meat at Tops since 1952.
McDonald's McRib
A boneless pork patty pressed into the shape of a rib rack, lacquered in barbecue sauce, with onion and pickle on a corn-dusted roll. The fast-food item built to vanish and return.
Lexington BBQ Sandwich
Pork shoulder smoked over oak, chopped, doused in the thin vinegar-and-ketchup "dip," and capped with red slaw dressed the same way. The Piedmont North Carolina build, and its one-ingredient line.
Kansas City BBQ Sandwich
Kansas City puts the sauce in front: burnt ends or chopped pork on a plain bun under a thick, sweet tomato-and-molasses glaze that clings rather than cuts. The most sauce-forward barbecue city.
Kalua Pork Sandwich
Kalua pork is the leftover of an underground pit oven where shoulder cooks under banana leaves and hot stones for hours. When it ends up on a sweet roll, the bread is the smallest decision.
Georgia Peach BBQ Sandwich
Smoked pulled pork under a peach-pureed barbecue sauce, the fruit standing in for refined sugar and doing the bodying and acid too. A Georgia build keyed to the state's emblem.
Eastern NC BBQ Sandwich
In eastern North Carolina the barbecue sauce is thin enough to drink: cider vinegar, red and black pepper, no tomato. Chopped whole-hog pork with crackling skin and sharp slaw on a soft bun.
Cracklin Sandwich
Fried pork skin (cracklins) on French bread.
Chopped Brisket
Smoked Texas brisket chopped on a butcher block with the bark worked through the pile, dressed with a thin tangy sauce, on a soft white bun with pickle and raw onion.
Chopped Beef Sandwich
The Texas barbecue counter's value order: smoked brisket ends and bark-heavy trimmings chopped, tossed in thin red sauce to bind them, and pressed into a soft bun with onion and pickle.
Carolina Whole Hog Sandwich
Whole hog (every part) slow-smoked over wood coals, chopped and dressed with vinegar-pepper sauce; the purest form of NC BBQ, served on a...
Carolina Pulled Pork
North Carolina splits on a sauce line: whole hog and thin vinegar-pepper to the east, Lexington shoulder and a ketchup-red "dip" west. The rivalry reached the legislature in 2006 and still lost.
Burnt Ends Sandwich
The brisket point, cubed and run through the smoker a second time into sticky, bark-heavy meat candy on a bun. Kansas City's most coveted cut, once given away free.
Brisket Sandwich (Texas)
At a Central Texas barbecue joint, the brisket sandwich is a counter cut made portable: post-oak-smoked beef sliced to order, plain white bread, pickles and raw onion, sauce kept on the table.