Salvadoran Pupusa
A ball of corn masa opened, stuffed with cheese, beans, or seasoned pork, then sealed and griddled into one round. El Salvador's national dish, and a fixture of Los Angeles, Washington, and Houston.
USA
Salt Potato Sandwich
Syracuse-style salt potatoes mashed on bread; local curiosity.
Salmon Burger
Salmon is too lean to hold a patty, so the salmon burger is an engineering job: a third blended to paste to glue thumbnail-chopped chunks, bound with egg and crumb. The Pacific Northwest standard.
Salmon Burger (Alaskan)
In Alaska the salmon burger tracks the run calendar: sockeye and coho worked into a bound patty, seared and folded into a toasted bun. A state that wrote wild salmon into its constitution.
Sacramento Squeeze Burger
A smash burger with a frico ring: a fistful of cheddar dropped on the steel around the patty, fried into a lacy skirt that overhangs the bun. The Squeeze Inn's Sacramento signature since 1977.
Runza
A runza is sealed before it is baked: soft yeast dough crimped shut around beef, cabbage and onion while still raw, so the bread cooks closed around a wet load that never leaks.
Roast Pork with Spinach
Roast pork with sautéed spinach and provolone.
Roast Pork with Long Hots
Philadelphia's other sandwich: garlic-roasted pork shaved thin and reheated in its own jus, sharp provolone, and fried long hot peppers whose heat arrives a beat late and builds across the roll.
Roast Pork Italian
Philadelphia's other sandwich: slow-roasted pork shoulder bathed in its own jus, sharp aged provolone, and bitter garlicky broccoli rabe on a long roll. The one locals order over the cheesesteak.
Roast Beef Sandwich
The plain roast beef sandwich: rare beef sliced thin against the grain, on bread, with horseradish. No jus, no soak, no gimmick. The baseline every regional version departs from.
Roast Beef Hero
Cold rare roast beef sliced paper-thin off the deli blade, ribboned into folds on a long seeded New York hero roll with horseradish mayo, lettuce, tomato.
Ripper Hot Dog
Hot dog deep-fried until the casing 'rips' open; crispy exterior.
Riggies Sub
Chicken riggies (spicy chicken with rigatoni) served in a sub roll.
Reuben
Press a spatula down on a Reuben and the sandwich becomes itself: corned beef, Swiss, kraut, and Russian dressing on rye, a loose stack that heat fuses into one thing.
Reindeer Sausage Sandwich
The reindeer dog is an Anchorage street-cart staple: a smoky caribou link cut with pork and beef because reindeer is too lean to bind alone, griddled and laid in a bun with cola-glazed onions.
Red Hot
Smoked pork/beef hot dog with red casing; Rochester staple.
Ramp Sandwich
The ramp sandwich is governed by a foraged plant and a six-week window: wild Appalachian leeks cooked soft and sweet, piled on plain bread with a fried egg, eaten while they are out of the ground.
Raising Cane's Chicken Finger Sandwich
Three chicken fingers on buttered Texas toast with Cane's sauce, a one-hand spin-off of the single-item Baton Rouge chicken chain Todd Graves opened in 1996 after his LSU plan failed the class.
Rachel
Sliced turkey (or pastrami) with drained coleslaw, Swiss, and Russian dressing on butter-griddled rye, the slaw and the meat both swapped from the Reuben.
Quiznos Classic Italian
Quiznos built a chain on one machine: the countertop conveyor oven that toasted every sub by default. The Classic Italian, four cured meats and molten mozzarella.
Quesabirria
Birria meat with melted cheese in a pressed tortilla, served with consommé dip; birria taco's cheesier cousin, equally viral.
Pulled Pork Sandwich
Slow-smoked, shredded pork shoulder with BBQ sauce on a bun, often with coleslaw.
Puffy Taco
The San Antonio puffy taco: a disk of fresh masa deep-fried raw so it balloons into a light, hollow-walled shell, folded hot and filled with picadillo. The crackle is its signature.
Puerto Rican Tripleta
Three meats, layered along a loaf of pan de agua with papitas inside the close, the Puerto Rican sandwich whose name carries its specification along the Santurce panadería network.