1000 Island brings the whole sandwich together, man.
Not so! I’d call it a “worthy sibling.” Even though I’ve eaten about a thousand burgers for every one patty melt I’ve had, I like and respect the form.
It’s the mooshing of the ingredients that makes the sandwich so tantalizing. It’s delicious on its own, without any condiments, simply basted in its own savory grease.
If no one’s looking, you can dip the edge in your French fry ketchup.
How does the fry cook get it INSIDE the sandwich? Or do you dip?
I could get behind the dipping idea. Thousand Island is basically ketchup and mayo mixed with chopped pickle, capers, garlic, and whatnot, all of which I would enjoy on a hamburger.
Dip. Definitely dip. The sandwich itself should have no condiments inside it.
The patty melt is my go-to order at restaurants. One of my favorites is at a Coney Island in metro Detroit. The cheese on this one: Swiss on one side of the patty, American on the other. Thick cut onions, grilled but not soggy, you can definitely feel yourself biting into them. Buttery grilled marble rye. I add a healthy dollop of yellow mustard. The two cheese approach is unique to this place, as far as I know, and it’s incredible.
I dunno what this 1000 island dressing shit is about. Are you sure you’re not confusing it with a reuben? What the fuck?
Rye. Well-buttered. Cheese (I don’t care. American, Cheddar, Swiss, whatever. Just gooey, gooey cheese.) Grilled onions. Yes, these are essential. How the hell do you have a patty melt without grilled/caramelized onions. To me, that’s 85% of the enjoyment of a patty melt. Add whatever condiments you want to this. I like mustard and a dollop of ketchup. But the essentials are: toasted, buttery rye; cheese, grilled onions, beef patty.
In my younger days I was all over the eastern seaboard. I’ve gotten patty melts everywhere, and it was always a beef burger on rye bread with some type of orange cheese. I don’t remember if they defaulted to onions.
I can’t eat rye (or pumpernickel) bread because it upsets my stomach. Most places let me substitute the bread but a few said “well then you’re going to have to order something else”. This was in the early 1990’s and I don’t know if the standard patty melt has changed/evolved since. One thing about the shrinking global food scene is that things become more and more blurred until they barely resemble the original item. There is no such thing as a “breakfast burrito” in Mexico, and people nowdays seem to think that you can call any flat piece of dough with toppings on it a “pizza”.
American cheese. A patty melt is a grilled cheese sandwich with a beef patty and grilled onions, and a grilled cheese sandwich is American cheese. American cheese has the perfect meltiness and perfect flavour to combine with a burger. Any other cheese is pretentious.
Grilled onions are optional, barely. But to me it’s not a proper patty melt unless it has grilled onions.
Rye bread is mandatory.
I likewise love patty melts, and find that there are far too few places that serve them.
The bread has got to be rye. That just goes without saying–I’ve never seen, and cannot conceive of, a patty melt with a different kind of bread. The cheese is usually cheddar or American, rarely Swiss, and lots of it. Onions are the default, but are not required. That is, you can get it without onions, but you must specify that you want it that way. If you order “a patty melt” with no further qualification, it will have onions.
That’s it. No other additions of any kind will appear on or anywhere near the patty melt. Certainly not any sort of dressing. That’s just crazy talk.
No confusion. Around these parts, 1000 Island is the standard condiment for a patty melt. But never on the sandwich. Just in a little dish on the plate. Must have eaten patty melts at a couple dozen restaurants around SoCal, and that has always been the case (unless my memory has finally gone down the rabbit hole or I’ve slipped through to a parallel dimension again.)
The patty melt at Steak and Shake comes with 1000 island on the sandwich. I do not know how kosher this is since I don’t like the sauce at all myself. Having not had a lot of patty melts, if I were to order one, all I’d expect is hamburger and a lot of cheese. I wouldn’t expect any particular bun, cheese, or onions, but come to think of it, if there were onions, having them raw rather than grilled would seem a little weird.
Wheat bread buttered & grilled, sauteed onions, cheddar, beef patty well done. Can’t imagine any other way.
Buncha weirdos. 
It seems like the California patty melt is a riff on the Reuben, then, with the Swiss and the thousand island, while here in the Midwest it’s more of a cross between a grilled cheese and a hamburger. I thought we at least could all agree on the rye but HMS had to chime in with some wheat nonsense. 
I mean, even McDonalds had it basically right back in the late 80s when they had their McCheddar Melt or whatever it was called. (They’ve had some versions since, too.) Rye bun (ok, it shouldn’t be a bun, but rather slices of bread, but it’s McDonalds), orange cheese, griddled/caramelized onions. Man, I was addicted to that limited time only sandwich when I was a kid.
That’s the Frisco Melt, not the Patty Melt. Maybe dressing on a patty melt is a California thing.
Not at all kosher. I’ve heard you can’t even have cheese with vegetables if the vegetables are formed into a patty.
No, a California patty melt is like a grilled cheese with a hamburger patty and grilled onions. I’m a native Californian, and this is the way they were always made.
The bread should be rye, but I agree with those who have offered sourdough as an acceptable alternative.
Those of you insisting on Swiss cheese and 1000 island are conflating the patty melt and the reuben. That is dangerous territory. Not that 1000 island wouldn’t be delicious, because it probably would, but ketchup for a patty melt is completely acceptable.
Sourdough is used by places that don’t know how to make a patty melt.
Catsup is acceptable; but for dipping, not inside the sandwich.
I’m sort of a patty melt junkie. In all my 40 years, I have never come across 1000 Island dressing in, on, or anywhere near my sandwich. The only thing, besides the patty melt, on my plate at any restaurant I’ve ever ordered it are fries and a pickle slice. This 1000 Island thing baffles me, and I can’t say I like the idea of it.
I put both mustard and a sometimes a smidge of ketchup in my melt. (Sorry, mustard just pairs so awesomely with both cheese and onions that I can’t imagine not putting it on. It just brings out all the flavors of this god-sent sandwich. This is my little straying from the traditional approach. When I make it myself, I just fry the onions in a bit of mustard.)