Yes you can make a Grilled Sandwich without butter. Really you can!
Plus it takes good too!!
I grew up eating those wonderful grilled sandwiches at Drugstore counters and mom & pop cafes. The cook kept a bowl of melted butter and a brush. He slathered that butter on both pieces of bread, added your favorite meat, American cheese, mayo and put it on this huge grill. I’m salivating just thinking of it.
I still love an authentic grilled sandwich and maybe three or four times a year I’ll make mine the old school way. But, normally I don’t need those calories & fat.
we’ve been eating up our leftover Christmas ham in grilled sandwiches this week. Squirt a little Pam in the skillet. Brown the ham and while its cooking get out the bread, slather on the mayo and add cheddar cheese. Put the hot ham on the sandwich and then put the whole thing in the skillet. That little bit of left over ham juice and Pam will brown up the bread perfectly. No butter needed. Taste yummy too.
It does help to use a really tasty bread. We bought Oroweat Whole Grain, Oatnut Bread for this weeks grilled sandwiches. Tasty.
Well, there’s browning and then there’s browning with something that adds flavor. Pam is relatively tasteless, but a good alternative for dieters or for someone who just wants to taste the cheese. Butter or olive oil (or a combo as I do) adds lots of flavor.
You’re putting mayo on a grilled cheese sandwich (ymmv, but gross) and you’re worried about the fat from butter on the bread?
A place near work makes grilled cheese sandwiches with no oil of any kind. they put the cheese (and any other ingredients into a sandwich and then throw the sandwich into their pizza oven (so it is more of a toasted cheese sandwich). They aren’t bad sandwiches, and the place is using really good quality ingredients, but it still is lacking something in the flavor department.
Yeah I had the grilled sandwiches with pam instead of butter at college because that’s how they made them. They were gross. I could stand to eat their grilled cheese, mainly because it was one of three lunches I could eat, but mine were a couple hundred times better. No thanks.
The bread is more fattening than the butter. Say that you put a patty of butter on your sandwich, that’s 36 calories. Two slices of bread is 134. Cut off the skin of the bread and you’re back down to 64 calories for the two slices, and then you can add on your butter for the same overall calories as no butter with skin.
I was shocked when I saw Alton Brown making a grilled cheese sandwich of some sort using olive oil instead of butter. But, why not? Olive oil is supposed to be good for you… When I make a grilled cheese I use the very smallest slice of butter, like half a pat, cook it on one side, and flip and let the other side do as it will - as long as the cheese is melted and the bread somewhat scorched. It’s presented butter-cooked side up and the happy recipient is none the wiser.
My mother (12 time winner of worst cook in the world) would make grilled cheese sandwiches without butter. No oil or anything else, just browning the bread on a hot skillet, usually burning it, or not quite getting it brown. They were awful. When I finally had a real grilled cheese sandwich I never looked back. So yes, you can make a grilled cheese sandwich without butter, but you may as well leave out the bread and the cheese as well.
Until I got lazy, I used to soften a cube of butter and whip it with an equal amount of olive oil, then refrigerate it. It never really hardens, and makes a great spread for toast or grilled cheese.
