Tips For A Perfect Grilled Cheese

Grilled cheese is the ultimate comfort food, perfect for lunch or dinner alongside a piping hot bowl of soup. There are so many ways to change these sandwiches up, adding some protein like bacon or ham, grilled veggies, or swapping white bread and American cheese for more exotic options, like pretzel bread and gruyere. This is a popular habit of students in culinary academy. While grilled cheeses tend to follow in the footsteps of pizza, as in, even a bad grilled cheese is still a pretty darn good grilled cheese, there are a few ways to guarantee your grilled cheese will be as fabulous as possible:

What’s more comforting than grilled cheese and a bowl of soup?

Don’t go overboard
While many think that there is no such thing as too much cheese, overloading your grilled cheese sandwich is one of the quickest ways to ruin the sandwich. The Kitchn suggests 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup of cheese for the perfect cheese to bread ratio and to avoid a goopy mess. If you’re using a protein that creates grease, like bacon, you may want to cut down even more on the cheese to ensure your sandwich doesn’t get too oily, making the bread soggy.

Grill the bread properly
A poorly grilled sandwich defeats the entire purpose. In order to properly grill each piece of bread, coat them with enough butter or oil to ensure they brown, without making them too moist. Leave your burner on low, so your bread perfectly browns while melting the cheesy goodness inside. If you’re in a hurry, you may be tempted to turn up the heat, but this will likely just lead to burnt bread and partially melted cheese – a disappointing sandwich indeed.

Use a good canvas
No matter how well you make a grilled cheese sandwich, it’ll be subpar if you use mediocre ingredients – we’re looking at you, American cheese and white bread. You need to choose a bread that’s sturdy and won’t get too flat when it sits on the griddle, and a cheese that melts well. Stray from cheese like Parmesan, feta or cotija. These are too crumbly and won’t melt evenly enough for a savory sandwich. If you do insist on using them, add another cheese that melts well. These include mozzarella, provolone, cheddar or any type of Jack cheese.