But yeah, Velveeta + can of Ro-Tel (seasoned diced tomatoes) = quintessential party queso. Set it out in a crock pot set on “low” with a big ol’ bag of chips … maybe some guacamole nearby … crack open the beers … now you got a party!
(Just add friends.)
Okay, sorry for continuing the Velveeta hijack.
Back on topic: Grilled cheese for me is white bread (or maybe white-wheat, which has at least glanced in the direction of fiber) with real butter, and … yeah, the individually wrapped slices.
I’ve used fancy bread; I’ve used fancier cheese. (Provolone is very nice.) But those are different sandwiches. Tasty? Sure. But different.
It’d be like if I was craving a McD burger, and someone brought me a thick hand-formed patty on brioche with, I dunno, shaved truffles or some shit.
It would be delicious, but … not the same, man.
I always arrange the additional ingredients (tomatoes, ham, whatever) in between two slices of cheese. So the bottom cheese adheres to the bottom bread and the bottom of the filling, and the top cheese adheres to the top bread and the top of the filling, and everything is stuck together.
I wish people wouldn’t be so stupidly ignorant as to dismiss American cheese. Despite the legal labeling, it IS cheese, and it melts better than any “real” cheese. I find melted cheddar absolutely disgusting. Swiss is OK, but I add some smoked gouda to my American for some extra flavor.
Whatever you use for the cheese part, just brown the insides of the bread before you add cheese and brown the outside.
I use butter with a touch of olive oil to help prevent burning. I’ve tired mayo, but it simply doesn’t taste good.
That’s why the supermarket has lots of options. I love melted cheddar. In fact, my most commonly consumed “grilled cheese” is a slice of light toast, with some thinly sliced cheddar on top, returned to the toaster oven and heated until all the cheese is melted. (Possibly with a thin slice of tomato under the cheese, but i don’t usually have a good tomato handy.) Yum.
I enjoy the deli style grilled cheese that’s cooked on a griddle or frying pan, but not so much that i ever prepare it for myself.
However, it was this thread discussing grilled cheese sandwiches that goosed my jones for a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, so this is where I posted. Owing to a fasting medical procedure, I was too hungry to be satisfied with just grilled cheese. The ham became an important addition. Protein, baby!
I love the classic American cheese grilled on homemade white bread. I’ve used both butter and mayo to achieve a good toasting on the outside, prefer butter by a nose.
Lately, my preference is for sourdough bread with any or all of cheddar and Swiss.
For a real cheesy treat, sprinkle some shredded Parmesan in the heated pan before you put the first buttered slice of bread down. The cheese will toast and crust to the outside of the sammie. Sprinkle a bit of Parm down when you flip the sammie to achieve the crust on both sides. Many yums!
Not out of place in this thread. Ham and cheese is an excellent extension of the concept. And it’s one where the two ingredients compliment each other better than some sandwiches where the cheese is more like a condiment. I have often gone from an intended basic grilled cheese to a ham and cheese just because the ham was there.
I’m going to petition Congress to make a law making it illegal for anyone to call anything besides American cheese grilled between 2 slices of white bread a “grilled cheese sandwich.” If you slide a slice of ham in there, for example, it’s called a grilled ham & cheese sandwich, or better still, a ham & cheese melt.
That being said, a grilled provolone, salami, capicola ham, and tomato sandwich on toasted French bread is mighty fine.
American cheese grilled between 2 slices of white bread is simply the grilled cheese template.
Copper American Cheese grilled in butter and a splash of bacon grease between two slices of crusty white Ciabatta served with homemade tomato bisque is not junk food—it’s the food of gods.
I’ve had grilled cheese done with the inside toasted also, it wasn’t bad, but there’s only so much better than you can get than my long time memories of American on white with butter. There’s smushiness that results and the fanciest cheese in the world on the fanciest bread can’t replace that texture.
I’ll tell you what I know, my wife coats the outside of the bread with mayo before putting it on the frying pan and she is wrong.
I agree the result is a nicer brown, however the taste is inferior to butter and the thought is disgusting so mayo on a grilled cheese sandwich is an abomination and I don’t care what Foodie Gastro Pub Chef’s recipe has to say about it. I will die on this hill.
So why are we supposed to butter the bread? I’ve never understood this. Everything else we cook, we throw fat into the pan, then cook it. That’s what I do with grilled cheese. You get both a perfectly beautiful brown (just swish it around in the butter) and all the butteriness you want? Why this bizarre (to me) ritual of buttering the bread? Why this silly hack of using mayo instead? I mean, OK, if you were actually making it on a grill you would have no choice, and maybe that’s where it comes from, for all that I know, but typically we cook it in a pan at home.
Rye or sourdough dunked in melted butter (mayo has an off taste to me), two slices of swiss, a few slices of turkey, maybe a few pepperonis, maybe some pepper relish, then a good chunk of shredded Mexican blend. Then toss it in the foreman grill for 6 minutes. Delightful.
I’ll put my hand up to being an uncultured Philistine, but when I want a grilled cheese sandwich, I want plain wheat bread and American cheese. Buttered, and grilled in a skillet; although I, too, have heard about the mayonnaise hack. Hopelessly plebeian, I know, but when I get a hankering, that’s what I want.
Reminds me of the climactic scene in The Menu, when Anya Taylor-Joy asks Ralph Fiennes to make her a cheeseburger: “A real cheeseburger. Not some fancy, deconstructed, affluent bullshit, a real cheeseburger.”
