The 50-Year-Old Iowa State Fair Recipe My Family Will Never Stop Making

Every August, when the Iowa State Fair rolls around, my Midwestern relatives make the trip from their scattered rural homes to the capital city of Des Moines to see one of the world’s largest pigs, the famous butter sculptures, and to eat their way through the fairground’s endless midway vending booths.

Like the rest of us, my almost 90-year-old grandmother loves an indulgent hot, saucy, cheesy sandwich. She and my late grandfather operated their dairy and beef farm in northern Missouri for many years, stocking all of their extended families’ freezers with enough ground beef and steak to collectively save us hundreds of trips to the grocery store. Though my grandmother doesn’t make the trek to the sweltering, busily buzzing—albeit highly entertaining—11-day state fair any more, she still holds a soft spot for the fair’s famed Italian grinder sandwich.

This hoagie rolled mess of ground beef and hot Italian sausage in pizza sauce with melted mozzarella made its way from the fairgrounds to our family tables four or five generations ago. Mothers have scrawled the simple recipe onto white lined recipe cards for their daughters for as long as I can recall.

The Iowa State Fair Legacy

The Italian grinder sandwich (called the Guinea grinder once-upon-a-time) is a comfort food classic. The satisfying, meaty creation combines minced onion and fresh basil with shakes of fennel seed and red pepper flakes for a sandwich we come back to over and over again.

It’s just one of many favorites folks have plucked from the fair’s culinary pages. The Iowa State Fair began as an agriculture and livestock showcase in 1854, welcoming a dairy building, machinery hall, cattle barn, and the now legendary carnival and food vendor midway over the years. Iowa’s single largest event has become synonymous with indulgent deep-fried foods on a stick.

Fairgoers return year after year to stand in line for bacon-wrapped fried Twinkies and juicy skewered whole pork chops. Of course, you can always get a corn dog, funnel cake or paper basket of cheese curds, but it’s fun to check out the latest compilations on the “what’s new” list. In 2024, dozens of new items tempted tastebuds, including a bacon cheeseburger eggroll, lobster corn dog and the Iowa sm’oak’ed roll—a flattened pork tenderloin layered and rolled with jasmine rice, jalapeno cream corn and smoked poblano queso cut into sushi-style bites.

One of the longest standing Iowa State Fair food staples, the Italian grinder is a saucy, meaty family favorite and an easy weeknight throw-together dinner.

My Family’s Italian Grinder Recipe

Makes: 4 Italian Grinder Sandwiches

Ingredients

• 4 hoagie rolls
• ½ pound ground beef
• ½ pound ground hot Italian pork sausage
• 8 ounce jar pizza sauce
• 1 tablespoon minced onion
• 1 tablespoon chopped basil
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 4 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions

• Step 1: Brown meats together in a pan over medium-high heat until no longer pink. Drain grease.
• Step 2: Mix onion, basil, oregano, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes into pizza sauce. Add to pan of pork and beef.
• Step 3: Simmer meat and sauce mixture over medium to low heat for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring regularly.
• Step 4: Preheat oven to 375 F. Split the hoagie rolls open. Layer each roll with the meat and sauce mixture and mozzarella cheese. Wrap each sandwich individually in foil and bake for 15 minutes in the oven. Serve hot with banana pepper rings as an optional topping.

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