Homemade Uncrustables: Because Apparently We Need Emergency Sandwiches

If there is one food that has earned permanent residency in our freezer, it’s homemade Uncrustables. These little bastards do it all.

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Lunch? Uncrustable. Snack between meals? Uncrustable. Someone is hangry and dinner is still an hour away? Uncrustable. Before-bed snack because apparently the dinner you ate 45 minutes ago is ancient history? Uncrustable.

They are basically the Swiss Army knife of feeding a family. And yes, you can buy them already made. But a box of six or eight costs around the same amount as the $10 cutter you need to make an ungodly number of them yourself. Buy the cutter. Buy some bread. Grab some peanut butter and jelly. Congratulations, you now run your own tiny sandwich factory. If you didn't already know that.

We Don't Make Six at a Time Around Here

I usually make an entire loaf of bread at once. Actually, who am I kidding? In our house, it's usually two loaves.

And they last approximately three days. THREE. DAYS.

I would love to tell you that I lovingly prepare these in small batches as needed, but that's not the life we're living. If I'm already standing there making sandwiches, I'm going full assembly line.

Bread. Peanut butter. Jelly. Smash. Cut. Repeat until I start questioning every decision that brought me to this moment. Then into the freezer they go.

First: Get the Right Cutter

There are approximately nine billion Uncrustable cutters online, and I have learned something important: Use the heavier one.

The flimsy little cutters technically work, but the heavier cutter actually presses through the bread and seals the edges better. It's worth the few extra bucks.

You're already manufacturing sandwiches in bulk. Don't make your life harder. Having kids is hard enough.

And Yes, The Bread Matters

Here's something I didn't expect to have strong opinions about: Bimbo bread makes the best Uncrustables. I don't know why. I don't know what kind of bread sorcery is happening over there.

It's soft. It squishes perfectly. The edges seal beautifully. It freezes well. It just works.

Go ahead and be healthy if you want. Use whole wheat. Use multigrain. Live your best responsible-adult life.

In fact, the pictures in this post are made with healthier bread. They're also from 2025 because I didn't have time to make another batch AND stage a photoshoot just so the internet could see me put peanut butter between two pieces of bread.

Not sure what I was pointing to here. Probably the nice sealed edges.

So you get vintage Uncrustable content. But since taking those pictures, I have learned the truth: Bimbo is the best. There. I said it.

PB&J Is Only the Beginning

Another reason I love making these myself is that you're not limited to whatever flavors happen to be sitting in the freezer aisle. Make whatever the fuck you want.

Classic peanut butter and jelly? Obviously. Fluffernutter? Hell yes. Nutella? Absolutely. Nutella and peanut butter? Go nuts.

Different jams, different nut butters, cookie butter, I'm not here to police your sandwich.

If it'll fit between two pieces of bread and survive being smashed together, AND your kids will actually eat it, I say give it a shot.

...Mae and the Great Crust Incident

Making Uncrustables leaves you with a shitload of crusts. Usually, each of our pups gets one. Everybody wins. Except there was that one time...

I had decided to really get ahead of life and make FOUR LOAVES worth of Uncrustables. Four. I made every single sandwich, sealed them, packed them up, and got the whole beautiful stash into the freezer.

Look at me! Meal prepping, being responsible, having my shit together. All that remained was a bread bag stuffed with the leftover crusts. Probably two or three loaves' worth after I'd handed out the dogs' customary crust treats. And then I realized I needed to pee... again.

Because apparently I cannot leave a room unattended for the amount of time it takes to pee without something going horribly wrong, I came back to discover that Mae, our naughtiest and chunkiest puppy dog, had gotten the bag off the counter. The entire bag, gone. EATEN. Not stolen and hidden. Not scattered around the kitchen. Eaten. All of them. Mae had apparently watched me spend all that time meal prepping and decided she deserved to meal prep too. Her meal just happened to be three loaves of bread crust.

So here's an additional step for the recipe: Put the crusts away before you pee. You're welcome.

Why I Keep Making These Things

Chaos and crust-stealing dogs aside, homemade Uncrustables genuinely make our lives easier. They're always there.

When somebody needs something fast, I don't have to cook. I don't have to figure out what snack everyone wants. I don't have to hear someone announce that they're STAAAAARVING while standing directly in front of a kitchen full of food. Grab an Uncrustable. Problem solved.

They're great for lunches, after-school snacks, between-meal snacks, before-bed snacks, or those moments when everyone is hungry but nobody wants an actual meal.

And when you have teenagers in the house, having something they can grab themselves is worth its weight in gold.

Here's How To Make Them

I'm reasonably confident you can figure out how to make an Uncrustable without a recipe. It's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without crust. We're not performing surgery here. But if you came all this way looking for actual instructions, I suppose I should provide some.

Homemade Uncrustables

You'll need:

• 1 loaf soft sandwich bread — Bimbo if you trust me

• Peanut butter

• Jelly, jam, Nutella, marshmallow fluff, or whatever the hell you want

• A heavy-duty sandwich/Uncrustable cutter

• Freezer bags or freezer-safe containers

Make the Sammies

1. Lay out two slices of bread.

2. Spread your peanut butter toward the center, leaving the outer edges mostly clean so they'll seal.

3. Add your jelly, or your chosen questionable sandwich filling to the middle.

4. Put the second slice of bread on top.

5. Center your cutter over the sandwich and press that sucker down firmly.

6. Remove the crust.

7. Repeat approximately 700 times because you decided making two loaves at once was a good idea.

Freeze Them

Put the finished sandwiches in a single layer in the freezer until they're firm. Once frozen, transfer them into a freezer bag or container.

Grab one whenever hunger-related violence seems imminent.

Let it thaw and eat. That's it. You've made an Uncrustable.

Is It Actually Worth Making Them Yourself?

YES. YES. YES.

The cutter costs about $10, which is roughly what you'll spend on one box of premade Uncrustables depending on where you shop. After that, you're buying bread, peanut butter, and jelly. Let's be honest, these are things you probably already buy anyway.

You control the filling. You control the bread. You can make a whole freezer full at once.

And most importantly, when somebody says: “I'm hungry.”

Here's The Math

A 10-pack of store-bought Uncrustables runs about $9.84, which works out to roughly 98¢ per sandwich. Making them at home with bread, Skippy peanut butter, and Welch’s strawberry spread comes out to around 24¢ each.

So every time I make one instead of grabbing one from the freezer aisle, I'm saving about 74¢. And 74¢ doesn't sound terribly exciting until you remember that teenagers don't eat one of anything.

Okay, But I Had to Buy the Damn Cutter

True. The sandwich cutter is a one-time expense, so technically we have to let it earn its keep before we start bragging about all the money we're saving.

At roughly 74¢ saved per sandwich, even a $10 cutter pays for itself after about 14 Uncrustables. Fourteen.

In a house with teenagers, that's less of a financial milestone and more of a Tuesday.

After that, the cutter has officially paid its debt to society and every batch is saving us roughly $7.44 per 10 sandwiches. If your family blows through 20 a week, you're looking at roughly:

Store-bought: $19.68/week Homemade: $4.80/week Weekly savings: $14.88

Do that for a 36-week school year and you're looking at roughly $536 back in your pocket, minus the one-time cost of the cutter.

So yes, I have to stand at the counter making tiny round PB&Js like I'm running a low-budget sandwich factory. This way, you can point toward the freezer and carry on with your life. Until you realize they've eaten two entire loaves worth in three days and you have to start all over again.

Welcome to our house.