This fab, quick snack, hits the spot on a budget! A pitta pocket is just a regular pitta bread, filled with fillings of your choice, then toasted. It’s just like a toasted sandwich, which is a quick way to make a hot and filling small meal or snack, but using pitta bread instead of bread and toasting it. If you use toasted sandwich bags then there’s no mess. The toastie bags are washable, so you do have to wash them out after you’ve used them (or not, if you take a quick look and judge!), but it’s easier to wash the toastie bag than the inside of a toaster!

Toaster bags are not made of plastic, they’re made of a polymer – like silicone – so they won’t melt or catch fire in the toaster (unless you’re being really careless and unlucky!). They can be re-used 100-500x, depending on which brand you’ve bought.

As I’d bought a long slot toaster to be able to make more toasted sandwiches, I thought it was high time I started using it, so today was the day. The first thing I had to do, as with all new small appliances, was to run it 2-3x so that any factory residue burned off – I always wait for a dry/bright day, then plug these things in out in the garden, “just in case” as I do have anxiety around kitchen appliances of all, of any, sort! So, that done, it was time to make the toastie.

Fun Fact: Toaster bags are used by many cafes, bars and restaurants as they don’t want the risk of staff members jamming up the toaster and the risk of cross-contamination increasing…. they’re a wholly safe and proper item!

Cheddar Cheese, Pickle & Corned Beef Pitta Pocket Toastie

Ingredients:

• 1 Asda pitta bread
• Some slices of cheddar cheese, the equivalent of, say, 2 cheese slices, so you could use ready sliced cheese
• 1 tablespoon of chutney – it didn’t matter what sort really, I had sweet pickle open already, so that was the one to use
• 2 slices of corned beef – the equivalent of 1-2 slices of corned beef you might buy at a deli or from the chilled section.

Firstly I had to measure if the pitta bread would fit in the toaster bag – I knew the pitta breads were larger than the bags, but “how much?” was the question. As you can see – there’s not a great deal of difference and, if the pitta is put in slightly diagonally it’ll be a closer fit. This wasn’t an issue as I turned the pitta toastie round in the bag half way through cooking in any case, while I was having a quick look to see how it was doing.

How Do you Make a Toastie?

1. Firstly, I sliced one edge off the pitta bread entirely – I see no point in trying to side-cut a flap, just slice the top off, it’s easier + it gives you a quick nibble to eat while you’re prepping!
2. I sliced some cheddar cheese
3. I cut just two slices from a lump of corned beef I had in the fridge as I’d made corned beef hash in the week and still had this lump leftover that I’d popped into the fridge. Ideally I’d have sliced it thinner than I did, but I was in a hurry to just crack on and didn’t have a sharp knife.
4. I placed the slices of corned beef inside the pitta bread, then spread some sweet pickle on the corned beef; next, it was the turn of the sliced cheddar cheese to be put inside the pitta.
5. The whole pitta pocket toastie then went into the toasted sandwich bag, which was a little bit of a tight fit at first so I squished it down on the worktop with my hand and tried again. Perfect this time. The pitta bread sat proud of the toaster slot, which is to be expected.
6. I turned the toaster on, on a low setting – this was the warm up the pitta/filling and to start to melt the cheese. After 2-3 minutes the toaster “popped” up and I had a quick look to see how it was going; the cheese was starting to melt.

7. I removed the pitta pocket from the toasted sandwich bag, turned it round, and put it back into the bag – so that the piece that hadn’t made it into the toaster before was now in the toaster. I also positioned the pitta better in the toastie bag and that meant almost the whole pitta pocket was fully inside the bag.
8. I then turned up the toaster one notch and turned the toaster on. When I could hear it sizzling, I couldn’t wait any longer, so removed it.
9. The cheese was melted, the outside of the pitta bread was crispy, the corned beef was fully hot.
10. That was a quick and easy snack lunch! And, the bonus for me was that none of the cheese had oozed out into the bag, so minimal washing up!

Toastie and Toaster Bag Q&A:

Q: Did the pitta bread become toasted and crispy?

A: Yes. These pitta breads start off soft, it definitely crisped up in the toaster bag and was crunchy.

Q: Did all the filling melt and was it hot?

A: Yes it was all hot and the cheese was melted. I’d cut the corned beef a bit thick, but that was still hot, corned beef doesn’t melt.

Q: Does the toaster bag burn in the toaster?

A: No. Of course you’d not put it in and wander off, but toaster bags are made of silicone, so are ovenproof and wholly suitable and safe in a toaster – just make sure when the bag goes into the toaster slot that it’s not all jammed and rammed in and touching the elements as that’d just be daft.

Q: Where can you buy toaster bags? Are they cheap or expensive?

A: They are very economically priced – you can pick up a pack of two toaster bags from shops such as Poundland, then they run through all the way up to more expensive brands such as Lakeland and beyond. Alternatively, you can just add them to your basket on Amazon if you’re a regular online shopper, so you don’t forget: Toaster Bags.