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Early in its evolution, around the 1910s, the grilled cheese sandwich was called a “cheese dream,” which sounds like the best possible name for this classic. The sandwich was inexpensive and filling, not to mention an ideal comfort food. Bread, cheese, and butter . . . what’s not to love?
The grilled cheese has come a long way since then. Instead of thin-sliced bread and a couple slices of cheese, we might use thick, crusty sourdough or ciabatta, a combination of gourmet cheeses, and a range of condiments or add-ins.
Regardless of this wide array of options, a grilled cheese sandwich comes together in much the same way. Read on for tips on how to make grilled cheese the right way, as well as a brief history of the sandwich.
Grilled Cheese Sandwich: The Basics
“A grilled cheese sandwich is like a blank canvas,” said the late Lorin Toepper, who started the Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Sandwich Championship, which attracts more than 3,000 spectators. “You can go so many different ways with it by using a variety of cheeses, adding ingredients, being clever with your bread selection, or making a compound butter to enhance the flavor even more.”
Part of a grilled cheese sandwich’s appeal lies in its flexibility—you can create a standard comfort food with a side of tomato soup, or you can tweak any of its individual components to add variety or panache.
Choose Your Bread
Almost anything works when choosing bread for a grilled cheese. The only features you want to avoid are breads that are too soft or too thin to stand up to the grilling and fillings or a bread that could become soggy. If you use a bread with holes, like ciabatta, slice it a little thicker so the cheese doesn’t ooze out.
Your bread choice comes down to what you’re in the mood for. Classic white bread is a traditional choice, with its soft texture and a hint of sweetness. Sourdough is also popular, adding tanginess and a crunchy crust. You might also consider whole-grain with its nutty flavor and the added benefit of fiber. And then there’s a bread like brioche, which is rich and slightly sweet, for a decadent twist.
Select the Perfect Cheese
When choosing cheese, consider texture and flavor. The cheese should melt well—you want a smooth, gooey texture and no oiliness—and the flavors should complement each other as well as the bread and any other fixings. American and cheddar are traditional choices, the former because it melts smoothly and the latter because of its sharp flavor as well as good meltability.
American cheese is the default choice for grilled cheese sandwiches, but there are many other options as well.
Other good cheese choices include:
- Swiss: Mild and nutty, Swiss pairs well with other cheeses.
- Mozzarella: Creamy and stretchy for a gooey center, mozzarella complements vegetables and fruit alike.
- Gruyère: A popular choice with a rich, nutty taste.
- Brie: don’t believe anyone who tells you brie is too melty. Mild and delectably creamy, brie pairs well with both sweet and savory.
- Havarti: a semi-soft cheese that’s mild and buttery, with a somewhat sweet taste, and creamy. It melts well, making it an excellent choice for fondue when not being put to use in a grilled cheese sandwich.
- Young gouda: smooth and a little fruity; aged gouda becomes more hard and doesn’t melt as well, and it has a different flavor profile, more sharp and salty.
Subbing In Plant-Based Options
Can you make a grilled cheese sandwich without dairy cheese? Sure! In place of cheese made with milk, you can use vegan cheese shreds and nutritional yeast.
Your primary concern with plant-based cheeses is finding an option that melts or that is creamy enough to provide the texture of a traditional grilled cheese sandwich, which could take some experimentation. Consider a liquid cheese like Miyoko’s liquid mozzarella for a melty cheese substitute. Tofu-based cheese and cashew cheeses can add a creamy texture.
Then there’s the butter. You can use nut butters for a butter substitute, a vegan mayonnaise, or olive oil.
Putting it Together: Grilled Cheese Prep and Add-Ins
It’s time to assemble! You’ve got your cheese, add-ins, and bread … speaking of which, do you slather the bread with butter or mayo? (Yes, mayo. It’s a popular option.)
Your choice. Butter is a classic option for flavor, while alternatives like mayonnaise or garlic-infused oil can provide extra crispiness. Some recipes use both butter and mayo, while others, like this Bon Appetit article that proclaims, “Butter goes in the pan not on the bread,” swear by one or the other.
The Bon Appetit article points out that mayo has a higher smoke point than butter and that the oil and egg yolks give it a “combined browning power.” Margarine is another option that also has a higher smoke point than butter. Once again, the fun is in the experimentation. See what combinations you prefer.
Here are some optional add-ins:
- Vegetables, like the classic grilled cheese and tomato; caramelized onions are a great choice, as are spinach and roasted peppers
- Proteins, like bacon or ham
- Sweet variations, like brie with a jam
- Thinly sliced green apple
- Condiments, like mustard or aioli
Is It Still a Grilled Cheese if You Add Meat?
Like the “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” debate, this one doesn’t appear to have a definitive answer, but the arguments are fun.
Does a grilled cheese need to only be cheese? How far do you take the add-ins before it becomes a melt? (You wouldn’t say “grilled cheese with tuna,” you’d say “tuna melt.”)
Here’s our take: grilled cheese seems to emphasize the cheese, with thinly-sliced ham, veggies, or other additions considered complementary flavors. If the meat or the veggies are the main show with a cheese topping, then that’s a different sandwich.
Cooking Techniques
When making a grilled cheese sandwich, use a non-stick pan or cast iron skillet for even heat distribution. Some people use a panini press, and if you’re making multiple sandwiches, bust out the griddle.
You’ll want to cook on medium-low to medium heat for slow, even toasting, which prevents burnt bread and ensures the cheese has melted evenly and thoroughly.
Here are the steps:
- Preheat the pan and apply butter/spread to bread slices. Add butter to the pan.
- Assemble the sandwich with cheese and optional fillings. Shred the cheese yourself instead of using pre-shredded, which is coated with a nonstick substance that impedes its meltability.
- Cook on each side until golden brown and cheese is melted. You can cover the pan to help the cheese melt.
- Slice, and give your sandwich the stretch test to see whether you made it gooey enough!
Accompaniments/Sides
Nothing beats a side of tomato soup for nostalgia (plus it tastes so, so good), but you’ve got plenty of options.
Consider a simple side salad with the tartness of thinly-sliced green apples and walnuts to complement the cheese of the sandwich. Chips or pickles offer a satisfying crunch that contrasts with the ooey-gooey cheese.
Grilled cheese and French fries are another classic; you can experiment with the sandwich as well as the fries, subbing in sweet potato fries or dressing them up with a little truffle oil for a more decadent version. Coleslaw is another complementary side or apple slices.
A Sandwich Evolution: The Greatest Thing With Sliced Bread
Some version of bread and cheese has been around forever (at least as long as human agrarian society), but the evolution of grilled cheese as we know it in the U.S. started as an open-faced sandwich known as toasted cheese or melted cheese in the early 1900s.
A Grilled Cheese by Any Other Name
The grilled cheese sandwich goes by other names around the world, some with variations on a theme:
- UK: cheese toastie
- Australia: jaffie
- Japan: Cheese toast, which sometimes incorporates miso butter
- Italy: panini
- France: croque monsieur, typically made with ham and cheese, and often dipped in egg before cooking
The grilled cheese sandwich has continued to evolve. It can be as simple as buttered white bread and cheese slices or as gourmet as artisan bread with a combination of cheeses and condiments.
Grilled Cheese in the Record Books
Any story about grilled cheese sandwiches is incomplete without a mention of the extremes some people have gone with them.
Most Expensive Grilled Cheese
A grilled cheese sandwich by Serendipity 3 in New York City holds the Guinness World Record for most expensive sandwich, which it debuted in 2014. At $214, the sandwich uses bread made with Dom Perignon champagne that is covered in white truffle butter then filled with the rare Caciocavallo Podolico cheese. After the sandwich is grilled, its edges are gilded in 23-karat edible gold flakes.
Largest Grilled Cheese
In October 2023, two brothers in Wisconsin broke the record for largest grilled cheese sandwich when they concocted a 418.7-pound behemoth, breaking the previous record—set by Cabot in 2000—by almost 100 pounds. Their team used focaccia bread for its sturdiness and made the “sandwich” on a griddle specially made for the occasion.
They cooked the bottom of the sandwich over an open flame and used blow torches to brown the top. According to Guinness, the brothers needed to make sure all of the cheese was melted and both sides of the bread were browned in order to break the record. The sandwich measured 6 feet, 2.41 inches wide, 10 feet, 10.7 inches long, and was 2.75 inches thick.
Most Religious Experience
And then there’s the Virgin Mary sandwich. In 2004, online casino GoldenPalace.com purchased a grilled cheese sandwich for $28,000 at auction on ebay. A woman from Hollywood, Florida, had reportedly made the sandwich 10 years earlier and taken one bite out of it before noticing what she thought looked like an image of the Virgin Mary looking back at her.
The woman stored the sandwich half in a clear plastic case and kept it on her nightstand before sharing the story with The Miami Herald newspaper. The story went viral and the sandwich, naturally, wound up on eBay.
Experiment With Flavor Combinations at Culinary School
The humble grilled cheese is just one example of a simple meal that can be spun off into a multitude of variations. By exercising an understanding of flavor profiles and smoke points, you can combine ingredients for maximum flavor and cook the sandwich until it has a satisfyingly crisp exterior with a perfectly melted interior.
If you want to discover more ways to elevate meals, culinary school can be a good place to enhance your knowledge and get hands-on experience in a kitchen with feedback from skilled chef instructors.
Contact us to discover how our programs can help you elevate your skills and potentially lead to a culinary career where you can continue experimenting.
