Hot Brown

About Dish

The original Hot Brown, named for the Brown Hotel whose chef created it in the 1920s, was sliced turkey on white toast topped with Mornay sauce and parmesan cheese, broiled until bubbly. When removed from the broiler, the top was criss-crossed with bacon strips and lengths of pimiento pepper. The hotel’s name became affixed to the dish, which has since become a Kentucky trademark, available in many alternate configurations: with ham in addition to the turkey, with tomatoes instead of pimientos, with crab meat instead of turkey; there even are hamburger hot browns and vegetarian hot browns.