Potato Chip-Encrusted Baked ‘Chicken’ Salad Sandwiches [Vegan]

Crack open a southern community cookbook--especially one from a small church--and you will likely find the non-vegan version of this ladies' luncheon favorite made with, of course, a can of condensed Cream of Mushroom soup. But I recommend it for men too, albeit without the soup. My mom introduced me to this main dish sandwich many years ago, after I had stopped eating beef and pork (at the age of 16 or 17, but about 16 or 17 years too many!), and it quickly became a family favorite. It is simple, but feels special. Veganizing the filling was easy using my formula to replace most any canned condensed "cream of" soup: 1 tablespoon vegan butter, 2 tablespoons flour, 3/4 cup unsweetened soymilk, and 1 "no-chicken" bouillon cube, though this filling calls for additional flour and milk or, in our case, soymilk. Note: "no-chicken" type cubes are seasoned differently than vegetable bouillon cubes, but if you can't find them, by all means use veggie cubes. The filling for this sandwich is almost like a vegan chicken casserole, so it is especially good when baked. But my hunch is that any chicken salad recipe would work for the filling, provided you kept it on the moist side, since you want a little of that moisture to seep into the bread for a nice puff; and since the sandwiches spend about a half hour in the oven. For the crust, the original recipe calls for dipping the sandwiches in an egg wash before adhering the crushed potato chips. I thought about a pureed and thinned tofu-wash, though that sounded heavy and messy; or a chickpea flour wash, though that still sounded messy. But, recently, I had lunch with a friend and we were talking about uses for (vegan) mayo. She recalled an egg-free eggplant Parmesan dish that called for coating the eggplant slices with mayo before coating them with crumbs. That sounded like the perfect solution and it was! I was a little afraid that the sandwiches wouldn't "puff," but they did, most likely from the moisture in the casserole-like filling. It has been many years since I enjoyed the original sandwiches, so they might have puffed-up more than this version, but mine are plenty puffed and I was thrilled with the results. Also regarding the delectable crunchy crust, I tried slathering all sides of the sandwich halves with mayonnaise, but that required a fair amount of mayo, potato chips and time. So I made the other three just by coating the tops, and that was the ticket! I honestly couldn't tell the difference once baked. However, you could strike a happy medium and coat the tops and bottoms if you were so inclined. Just remember to make these sandwiches the day before you plan to serve them, as they need to rest in the refrigerator overnight before baking.