The meats Firehouse Subs uses to make their sandwiches is turkey, ham, steak, corned beef, pastrami, roast beef, brisket, chicken, meatballs, salami, pepperoni, tuna, and bacon.
These are all the meats used for making their ten main sandwiches on the menu, and their special subs as well. Each meat has flavors suited for the combinations of veggies, sauces, and cheese placed on each type.
This means that some of the meats don’t taste very good by themselves, while others do.
Firehouse’s brisket, chicken, ham, and meatballs for example, have good flavors without any additions. The corned beef and roast beef aren’t as good by themselves.
The brisket is actually one of their best tasting meats, and the ham was indeed honey ham.
Their roast beef is a bit salty, and their turkey is a little dry. However, their Turkey Bacon Ranch is actually pretty good.
Here are the meats that go on each of their ten sandwiches:
1. Hook and Ladder
The Hook and Ladder has ham and turkey.
2. Meatball
The regular meatball and the sweet and spicy meatball only have meatballs, while the pepperoni meatball has pepperoni and meatball as the names suggest.
3. New York Steamer
The New York Steamer has pastrami and corned beef. The pastrami is beef cut from the naval region of the cow. Corned beef is basically brisket just done in a different fashion.
4. Italian
The Italian sub has three meats: ham, salami, and pepperoni.
5. Turkey Bacon Ranch
The Turkey Bacon Ranch has turkey and bacon as the name suggests.
6. Club On A Sub
The Club On A Sub has ham and turkey, just like the Hook and Ladder, plus bacon added to it.
7. Steak and Cheese
The Steak and Cheese comes with steak only for its meat.
8. Engineer
The Engineer comes with turkey only for its meat.
9. Hero
The Hero has three meats: roast beef, ham, and turkey.
10. Brisket
The Brisket comes with brisket as the name suggests, which is a form of beef cut from the breast region of the cow.
Firehouse Single Meat Subs
They have additional sandwiches that are single meats, which each have one of the specific meats mentioned above.
Some examples of single meats would be a roast beef, chicken, turkey, or ham sub. Each of these come with only one meat, unlike their main sandwiches that come with a combination of two or more.
There are subs on the main menu that arent counted as single meats; even though they only have one meat, since they are a part of the main ten sold nationwide.
These sandwiches are the meatball subs (with the exception of the pepperoni meatball) steak, and the brisket.
The brisket and steak is sold at a higher price than the single meat sandwiches, because the brisket and steak is more expensive. The single meat subs are usually the cheaper options.
How Firehouse Subs Heats Their Meats
Every meat used by Firehouse Subs is already pre-cooked before it is steamed in one of their food steamers. If you have never seen one of these, it is basically a metal box plugged to a wall that releases really hot steam on whatever is placed into it after the lid is closed and the button is pressed.
It has a timer that can be adjusted for shorter or longer periods of time. The meat is placed on a special cooking paper known as parchment paper with the meat and cheese ingredients for the sandwich only, then steamed.
The time for steaming the meats is around 2 minutes and 45 seconds for walk in customers, and 1 minute and 45 seconds for drive-through. The streamer steams the meat one time once the meat is placed in and the button is pressed, then once more every 15 seconds until the timer is up.
If the meat is going to be hot all the way through for the subs, it has to sit in the steamers for the entire time.
The result of an undesired cold sub at Firehouse Subs is from a malfunctioning steamer, but often from careless employees taking the meat out the steamers early to finish the sandwiches faster.
Of course like any sub, these sandwiches can be ordered cold on request. The bacon is placed on foil and sent through an oven at temperatures around 375 degrees normally.
Is Firehouse Subs Meats Processed?
All of Firehouse subs meats are processed. The corned beef is cured, all of the meats are pre-flavored, and the bacon is definitely processed. None of their meats are 100% fresh, thus making them processed.
Deli meats go through many stages of heating and seasoning with heavy machinery before being packaged into the large hunk of meat wrapped in plastic with a label on it. This includes the chicken and the turkey.
Firehouse’s meats come packaged as a hunk of seasoned meat that is eventually placed on a slicer. It is cut into thin deli slices, weighed out, and eventually placed on the subs as strips of meat.
Firehouse doesn’t season and cook raw meat. It is already done before it arrives at store locations.
This information has been gathered from a slicer employee who has worked there for years. The packaged meat had Firehouse’s own brand labeled on the wrap.
Firehouse Subs Meat Quality
Besides the meats being processed, the quality of the meats were monitored regularly according to health inspection standard. The meatballs are kept in freezers, thawed out in the cooler, and kept in commercial coolers after they are sliced.
The quality of the meats were as good as the bread if that says anything. The meatballs were cooked in microwaves, after they were placed in containers and smothered in marinara sauce.
The timers were repeatedly reset until they reached the required temperatures, then placed into APWs (commercial cooking equipment to keep them at proper temperatures) to keep them heated.
As the meatballs sit in the marinara sauce, the quality usually remains good throughout the day. They only become dry when some of them aren’t covered in the sauce while they are heated.
Since steamers are used, the other meats come out good for the sandwiches. However, the quality of the meat dries and shrivels when left in the steamers too long. They can even burn after extended periods of time, showing chars on the edges.
Dry meat usually means that. It is rare for this to happen at busier locations. Usually it is the other way around: The meat isn’t steamed long enough, resulting in a cold sandwich.
Meats were kept in the commercial coolers for no more than 3 days before being thrown out.
All of their meats come in fixed amounts for their sandwiches depending on what size is ordered.
The weight of the meats are 2 ounces for almost all their small sandwiches. The medium sandwiches have a fixed amount of 4 ounces total, while the larger have double (8 ounces).
Single meat large subs come with 2 ounces les for the large sandwiches.
‘Double meat’ can be ordered for extra, which gives you literally double of what you have with the exception of the Italian sub.
Double meat subs are placed on separate papers to make sure the meat is steamed thoroughly.
3 thoughts on “All Of The Meats Available At Firehouse Subs”