See what I did there?

Sometimes indecision can lead to greatness.

For example, I love John Stewart’s Indecision election coverage. He always makes it very clear how much of a hot mess politics can be on both sides of the old aisle.

I’m not so indecisive about politics though.

I’m more indecisive about sandwiches.

On this occasion I was torn between making a grilled cheese sandwich or a club sandwich. My indecisiveness led me to just smack them together and call it good. And trust me, it was really good.

Grilled Cheese Club

Yield: 1 sandwich

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

3 pieces of bread
2-3 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, grated or sliced
1 chipotle pepper, diced
1 tablespoon salsa
1/2 avocado, sliced
2 slices bacon, crispy
Cilantro
Butter

Directions:

1) Butter two pieces of bread. Slice or grate the cheese and dice up the chipotle. Cook bacon either in a pan until crispy or on a wire rack in a 350 degree oven until crispy, about 15 minutes.

2) In a small skillet, add one piece of buttered bread, butter side down. Top with cheese, pepper and salsa. Top with other piece of buttered bread, butter side up.

3) Cook grilled cheese over medium heat for about 6-8 minutes, flipping occasionally until bread is browned and cheese is well-melted.

4) Toast other piece of bread. Top with bacon, sliced avocado, and cilantro.

5) When grilled cheese is done, add entire sandwich to the top of the open-faced part of the sandwich.

6) Slice and serve immediately!

A Tex-Mex Flair

When slapping together a grilled cheese sandwich and a club sandwich, almost any toppings will work. This is more a post about a simple idea rather than an exact recipe.

I decided to go with a tex-mex version though with chipotle peppers, cilantro, avocado, and salsa. Feel free to adapt to your tastes.

Some of my personal favorite flavors.

The Grilled Cheese

You might ask why I wouldn’t just shove all the ingredients into one grilled cheese sandwich.

The answer is two-fold. First, I don’t think they would all easily fit. Second, things are just better when they are stacked. Take my word for it.

The grilled cheese sandwich itself is pretty basic. I always recommend buttering the bread for a grilled cheese, but you don’t necessarily have to go as heavy on the butter as I do. I have a heavy butter hand – no question.

Butta that bread.

Add one slice of bread, butter side down, into a small skillet and then top with cheese, diced chipotle pepper and salsa. If you want to not have it be super-spicy, leave out the chipotle and just use some salsa.

Also, your cheese will melt easier if it’s grated. I didn’t grate mine on this occasion because I just plain forgot.

Some spicy stuff.

Cover this with the other piece of bread (butter side up) and cook it over medium heat until the cheese is melted and the bread is nice and brown. It’ll probably take about 8 minutes.

The key with cooking a grilled cheese is not to cook it over high heat. If you do, the bread will brown before the heat has time to transfer through to the cheese and you’ll end up with a burned sandwich.

Just keep it over medium heat and flip it every few minutes and you should be good to go.

The Club Section

I just couldn’t make a club sandwich without bacon. It’s not to say that you couldn’t, but I couldn’t.

I like to bake my bacon in the oven on a wire rack at 350 degrees so it gets nice and crispy.

The only way to do bacon.

Toast your third piece of bread and then add your bacon to the bread.

You’ll also need to slice up some avocado and grab a few cilantro leaves. I went heavy on the cilantro because I wanted a lot of herb flavor, but use it to your tastes which for some people is not at all.

Sandwich building 101.

Stack the avocado slices and cilantro right on top of the bacon. Notice that I didn’t put down any mayo or anything. You don’t really need it for this sandwich because the avocado has a creamy texture to it and there’s lots of cheese in the grilled cheese half.

Half of a sandwich.

Putting it all together

This isn’t rocket science, but I was pretty giddy while making it.

When your grilled cheese is done, it’s as simple as plopping it right on top of your club sandwich half.

Stacked up!

Slice it up so it’s easier to eat and you’re good to go.

I just love the layers in this bad boy. It was really good.

This worked.

This might be a bit more complicated than a normal grilled cheese, but it’s also more filling and has some really complex flavors which I liked.

The thing that takes the most time for the recipe is actually cooking the bacon. If you’re rushed you could leave it out or sub it with deli meat or something.

While indecision created this lovely thing, you should be decisive about making it as soon as possible.

Grilled Grilled Cheese

Something has always burned my toast about grilled cheese sandwiches. They are never actually grilled. They should be called skillet cheeses or maybe a George Foreman Cheese if you rock that way.

In any event, I’ve never actually seen a real grilled cheese that’s actually grilled. So I decided to give it a shot.

Turns out that it’s called a grilled cheese for a reason: It should be grilled. There’s no two ways about it. If you have access to a grill, this is what you do from now on.

Grilled Grilled Cheese

Yield: 2 sandwiches

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

4 pieces thick, sturdy sandwich bread
4 ounces Pepper Jack cheese, or your favorite
Baby spinach, chopped
3-4 ounces bacon, chopped
3-4 Tablespoons butter, softened

Helpful Equipment:
A Grill!

Directions:

1) Roughly chop bacon and spinach and slice or grate your cheese.

2) Butter one side of all 4 pieces of bread.

3) Build the sandwiches before putting them on the grill. Bread, Cheese, bacon, spinach, more cheese, bread.

4) Prep your grill by setting up a very hot zone and a low heat zone.

5) Add sandwiches to high heat zone. Cook for 90 seconds, turn it 90 degrees, cook for another 90 seconds. Flip it.

6) Cook for another 90 seconds, turn it 90 degrees, then another 90 seconds.

7) Move sandwich to your low heat zone for 5-7 minutes and cover the grill. The cheese should melt nicely.

8) Eat immediately!

Prepping the Sandwich

I didn’t include this sandwich in my Grilled Cheese Trials series because the fillings I used were pretty basic, although delicious. My goal was to master the grilled method and worry about fillings later.

That said, I made sure to pick out some stuff that I knew would be tasty together: spinach, pepper jack cheese, and bacon. Get creative with fillings though. Don’t feel limited to these.

Basics for a good sandwich.

One thing you want to make sure you do when prepping your sandwich for the grill is butter it well.

You want a good even layer of butter on each slice of bread. This will make sure the bread doesn’t stick to the grill and also because butter is good.

I used maybe a tablespoon to 1 1/2 Tablespoons for my bread.

Gotta use tha butta.

Make your sandwich on a plate or something. You don’t want to be building it on a hot grill. You’ll just lose a lot of filling ingredients that way.

I stacked my sandwich with cheese, then bacon, spinach, and more cheese. It’s a good idea to roughly chop the spinach and bacon just so it’s easier to eat later on.

Go big!

Prepping the grill

The problem that you have with a grill is that it can get really hot and burn your bread before you even notice it. But we’re going to use that heat to our advantage also.

Prep your grill by making a really hot zone and then a low heat zone. Since I have a gas grill, I turned my front burner on high and left the back two burners off which gave me a great heat zones for this.

When you’re ready to grill, start the sandwich on the very hot zone. Make sure you preheat the grill for 5-10 minutes. You want the thing blazing.

90 seconds, turn 90 degrees, 90 seconds.

Here’s the time breakdown to get a good sandwich. Assuming you have a hot grill, start it for 90 seconds. Then turn it 90 degrees to get crisscross marks, then grill for another 90 seconds.

Now you need to flip the thing. This will be a tricky flip because most likely the cheese won’t be melted yet to hold the sandwich together. Feel free to use a hand to stabilize the sandwich as you flip it.

You should see some very pretty grill marks.

EXPERT.

Grill the sandwich for another 90 seconds, turn it 90 degrees, then a final 90 seconds.

Then move the sandwich to your low heat zone. The key now is to melt the cheese completely without toasting the bread anymore which is already nice and toasty.

Once you have the sandwich over low heat, cover it for about 5 minutes. That should do the trick in the melting department.

Come on... so good.

I like to slice mine in half for easier handling.

This was kind of a messy sandwich, but man was it good.

You want this.

So this makes an awesome sandwich, but that’s not even the best benefit of cooking grilled cheeses on the grill. I think the best reason to do it is if you’re cooking for a crowd! You could bust out 8 of these at once when if you were using a skillet, you’d have to make them individually.

So don’t fear the grill. It makes some darn good cheesy sandwiches.

One of my favorite photos!

I was really itchin’ for a grilled cheese over the weekend but after my last sort of failed grilled cheese, I needed inspiration from others. So I sent out a Tweet and figured I’d get some delicious ideas from the Tweople. I got some really great suggestions!

Here’s a few of the suggested ideas:

• @christianrock28 a caprese salad grilled cheese. Like tomatoes mozzarella cheese and basil. -Anita
• @vanillakitchen love it w corn relish in middle
• @rosscott Smoothie! (I thought and thought about it but couldn’t master the physics of it…)
• @onmaggiesfarm maybe something sweet? like challah with ricotta or chevre honey and sliced peaches.

The peach theme was close, but at the end of the day, the winner was:

• @floridagirlindc ooh yeah- grill w peaches, arugula & gruyere!

I wanted it immediately.

Peach Grilled Cheese

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

4 slices of rustic bread (I used a sourdough loaf)
2 very ripe peaches, peeled and sliced
4-6 ounces Gruyere cheese, sliced
Handful of arugula
Butter

Directions:

1) Peel and slice your peaches, slice the cheese, slice and lightly butter the bread.

2) Using a large skillet or non-stick pan, add a slice of bread, buttered side down for each sandwich. Put a layer of peaches and cheese on each slice. Top with arugula and the top piece of bread, buttered side up.

3) Cook over medium to medium-low heat, occasionally flipping until the bread is browned and the cheese is really melted. Gooey melted. Keep an eye on it to make sure the bread doesn't burn. This will probably take 8-10 minutes.

4) Serve immediately.

The Ingredients

The flavors in this sandwich are kind of out of this world. There are only three ingredients, but they go perfectly together.

Accidental Face!

You’ll also want some really sturdy bread for this sandwich. Wonder bread will not do the trick. Hunt out a good rustic loaf of bread or use some no knead bread if you have some. I found a really nice loaf of sourdough from my local farmer’s market (also got the peaches from there).

Wonder bread is a no-no here people.

Peeling the peaches

Peaches can be kind of tricky to peel because they’re a bit slippery. There are two techniques for this.

First, you can brave them with a good veggie peeler or a paring knife. This is what I did and it works okay. You just need a steady hand.

Second, you can dunk the guys in boiling water for a few seconds and then run them under cold water. The fuzzy peel should slide right off. Of course, for this technique you have to boil some water which adds on to your time.

Either method will work though.

In any event, get all your ingredients ready before you start making the sandwich. That means slice the peaches, slice the cheese, and lightly butter one side of every slice of bread.

All ready to go!

Cooking the Sandwich

You can cook a grilled cheese in almost anything (or even on a grill). I’ve done it in a normal skillet, a cast iron skillet, and a non-stick pan. I used a large non-stick pan for this sandwich.

The key, in my opinion, to a good grilled cheese sandwich is to use medium to medium-low heat. If you crank up the heat too high, then the bread will be completely burned before the cheese is melted. A low heat allows time for the heat to transfer through the bread and melt the cheese.

I started by putting my pan over medium heat and then added two slices of bread, the peaches, and then the cheese.

Just kind of layer it so it looks nice and even.

Not really rocket science.

Then add a handful of arugula and the top piece of bread, butter side up.

Keep a close eye on your sandwich. Baby it. It’s probably the most important thing you’ll cook all day.

After a few minutes, give the sandwich a flip with a big spatula. The sandwich will be sturdier as the cheese melts, but this first flip might be a little tricky. You might need to use your extra hand to hold the sandwich together as you flip it.

If things slide around a bit, you can fix it after the flip.

I flipped out.

These sandwiches will probably take anywhere from 8-10 minutes to cook. Again, don’t get in a hurry. If you’re bread is browning too much on one side, flip it over to give that side a rest and turn down the heat a bit.

As with any grilled cheese, the sandwich is done when the cheese is gooey!

Eat this as soon as possible!

No big deal. I just rule.

As with any sandwich grilled cheese I make, I need to rate this bad boy.

Cheesiness: 9. Melted Gruyere is one of my favorite cheeses. Sure it’s a bit expensive, but it’s really delicious and melts perfectly.
Bread: 9. Sourdough is a great grilled cheese bread. It easily held up to the fillings and browned nicely.
Fillings: 9. Perfect. Summer. Fillings.
Overall: 9. This was one of the best grilled cheeses I’ve made. As good if not slightly better than the Brie and Pesto Sandwich.

If you can get your hands on some good peaches, this is a solid use for them!

I hate to admit it, but I was kind of at a loss as to what to make.

Then I got a wonderful email from a reader (Hi Yasmin!) about The Grilled Cheese Academy (WARNING: Has sound). The site features 30 ridiculously delicious looking grilled cheese sandwiches. I couldn’t even pick one so I just went over to Random.org and picked one randomly.

The one I picked? #1. The Sergeant Pepper (Has Sound). I suggest clicking that link so you can see how delicious this sandwich looks. I should’ve known not to trust something that looks that delicious.

You want to see what the sandwich looks like when a real human makes it?!

No.

This sandwich was an absolute disaster. Whoever came up with this had to be high on something (and maybe that’s what warranted The Beatles reference?). The sandwich has bread, two kinds of cheese, sauteed cauliflower, and fried onions.

When I forced Betsy to eat hers she took a big bite (she’s a trooper) and said, “This is just weird.” And that’s pretty much right. It wasn’t exactly bad. It was just really weird.

I think this was one of those cases where, in my opinion, the meal would have been a lot better with its pieces. So definitely make the onion strings, and saute some cauliflower if you choose, and by all means make a grilled cheese with two different kinds of cheese.

But do not. Under any circumstances. Put them all together.

The Onion Strings. I don’t really care to share this whole recipe with you all except I will tell you about the good part which was the onion strings.

Spicy Onion Strings

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

2 large yellow onions
1 Cup all-purpose flour
1 Cup rice flour
1/4 Cup cornstarch
2 Cups seltzer water (if I made this again, I would use beer)
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
1 Tablespoon black pepper
1 Teaspoon (or more) cayenne pepper
1-2 quarts oil for cooking

Helpful Equipment:
Deep fry thermometer

Directions:

1) Slice onions thinly with a mandoline.

2) Mix batter ingredients together in a large bowl.

3) Heat up frying station and heat oil to 350 degrees.

4) Toss onions with spicy batter and then dip straight in the fryer. Cook for 3-4 minutes until they are very crispy. Work in batches as you fry.

5) Eat immediately!

You can definitely use a sharp knife to try to cut your onions as thin as possible (which I did for my deep fry party last year) or you can pick up a reasonably cheap mandoline and have it do all the work for you.

Use the guard people.

The only thing I will say about this device if you’ve never used one is that it’s pretty dangerous. It’s basically a huge razor set in plastic that you can slide things over very quickly. It comes with a guard which you will be tempted to throw away. Under no circumstances would I recommend using this thing without the guard.

I once saw a dude slice off all of the tips of his fingers in one swipe by not using the guard. So use the guard if you’re going to use one of these creatures.

The good news is that if you can master it, it’ll make short work of a lot of onions.

Beautiful.

The Batter

Once you get your onions sliced you just need to mix up a quick batter for the onions rings. The only thing I’d change about this recipe I think is I’d use a light beer instead of seltzer water if I made it again. Other than that it was pretty tasty.

Not bad.

Just whisk together all the batter ingredients and toss in all your onions. You’re looking for lightly coated onions here. They are pretty thin so you don’t want a lot of cakey breading.

Everyone in the pool.

Frying the Onions

Heat 4 or 5 inches of oil in a pot to about 350 degrees. I recommend using a neutral oil like Canola oil and also using a Deep fry thermometer so you can control the temperature.

Do these in batches so they don’t all clump together (although they kind of will no matter what) and they should take about 3 to 4 minutes to be cooked. Move them straight to a paper towel to drain. These will be super-crispy and delicious.

Best part of the meal.

The Nightmare Part

I just want to quickly show you how ridiculous this sandwich was. For starters, I sauteed some cauliflower in butter which was fine and it tasted great just like this.

Tastes great by itself!

But then the recipe instructed me to put pepper jack cheese and the cauliflower on some bread. So far so good.

Cheese and Cauliflower

The next step is when it kind of just got crazy. I piled on the fried onions and then another layer of cheese, this time cheddar.

This is wrong.

I cooked it just like a normal grilled cheese, but it was a messy disaster in the pan. It was kind of a disaster on the plate also.

No thanks.

Just for the sake of being thorough, I’ll grade this monstrosity like I have the other sandwiches in the grilled cheese trials.

Cheesiness: 8. There was a lot of cheese in this sandwich actually. In fact, the sandwich would’ve been better with just the cheese.
Bread: 6. There was so much stuff in this sandwich that the bread couldn’t really hold up to it. And I make some sturdy bread people.
Fillings: 2. I have no words for the strangeness of flavors that these fillings created.
Overall: 4. I can imagine a worse grilled cheese. It was at least cheesy, but this is a pretty prime example of over-thinking a good thing.

In summary, make the onion strings and pass on the sandwich.

As a bonus challenge, if anyone can reproduce the sandwich exactly as it looks on the Grilled Cheese Academy with real food (I have my suspicions about their version…) and send me a photo of it, you would win my un-dying respect.

You can find all the previous entries under the Grilled Cheese Trials. Today’s entry is a tapenade sandwich with homemade bread and mozzarella cheese!

Um. Yes please.

I came up with this idea largely because I had some great tapenade ingredients left over from my Greek nachos experiment. I figured why not make a sandwich with them!

Tapenade Grilled Cheese

Yield: 2 sandwiches.

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 head roasted garlic
1/3 Cup sun-dried tomatoes
1/3 Cup kalamata olives
2-3 Tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper
6-8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese
Fresh basil
4 slices sturdy, rustic bread. A sourdough loaf would be good.
2-3 Tablespoons butter

Helpful Equipment:
Mini food processor (obviously you could use the bigger version if you have that)

Directions:

1) Roast the garlic by cutting the top off the entire bulb, drizzle with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle with salt then wrap the entire thing in foil.

2) Bake at 350 degrees for 30 – 40 minutes.

3) In a food processor, chop sun-dried tomatoes then add olives and cloves of roasted garlic. Drizzle in a few tablespoons of olive oil until mixture comes together leaving it a bit chunky.

4) Take two slices of bread and lightly spread butter on them.

5) Flip the pieces over and slather on some tapenade onto both sides of the bread.

6) Layer on sliced mozzarella and some fresh basil and press together so the buttered sides are on the outside.

7) Grill on a medium to medium-high heat for a few minutes gently give it a flip as often as needed.

Making the Tapenade

You could make a more traditional tapenade with capers and anchovies if that’s your thing. I went with a roasted garlic and sun-dried tomato version though.

To start, you need to roast a head of garlic. This couldn’t be easier. Just chop off the top off an entire bulb, drizzle it with a bit of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and wrap the whole thing in foil.

Pretty straightforward

Bake it at 350 for about 30-40 minutes. Your house will smell delicious and the garlic should be a nice light brown color. Let it cool for a few minutes.

If they made a candle, I'd buy a box.

If you’re making my version of the tapenade you’ll need these things also:

Ingredients for the tapenade.

I have a tiny 3 Cup food processor that’s perfect for mixing up stuff like this. I threw in my sun-dried tomatoes first as they would be the hardest to chop and gave them a spin for a few seconds. Then I added my olives and finally my cloves of roasted garlic. Drizzle in a few tablespoons of olive oil until the mixture comes together.

Looks like a lot of garlic... don't worry.

It looks like a lot of garlic, but the flavor is actually pretty mild.

Pulse it a few times to combine everything and you’ll be all set. You don’t want to over-process this spread. A bit chunky is good in my book.

Yum.

Making the Sandwich

I think that choosing the appropriate bread is one of the most important things you can do for a grilled cheese. For this sandwich, I think I chose wisely. I went with a rustic loaf of homemade no knead bread. This is actually my normal bread that I make once a week and it worked great with this sandwich. I wanted to make sure I had something hearty enough to stand up to the tapenade.

Can't buy this!

To get the sandwich ready, take two slices of bread and lightly spread butter on them. That will be the outside of the sandwich. Then flip the pieces over and slather on some tapenade onto both sides of the bread. Layer on sliced mozzarella and some fresh basil and smoosh it all together so the buttered sides are on the outside!

It’s ready for the heat!

Get it?

The key thing about a grilled cheese is controlling the heat. To hot and you’ll burn your bread before your cheese is melted. Too low on the heat and you’ll starve before it’s done.

A medium to medium-high heat should be about right depending on your stove and pan. Just set the sandwich in and let it cook for a few minutes and gently give it a flip. These aren’t like pancakes, you can flip them over and over again and that’s just fine.

This is about as perfect as it gets in my book:

Grill baby grill.

The good news about this sandwich is that mozzarella melts incredibly fast. So you shouldn’t have to worry about the bread being toasted before the cheese is melted.

Nice.

As with all the other grilled cheese trial submissions, here’s my verdict:

Cheesiness: 7. I think mozzarella is better for pizzas than sandwiches. It was good, don’t get me wrong, but it was almost too melty. It made it kind of hard to eat!
Bread: 9. The bread was great. Nicely toasted with a good crunch to it. It held up perfectly to the toppings.
Fillings: 9. I swooned over this tapenade. I could just eat it with a spoon.
Overall: 8. Unfortunately, not the best sandwich I’ve made for this competition, but definitely a worthy competitor. I think if I subbed out a slightly more flavorful cheese, I’d be onto something.

Got an idea for a grilled cheese? Leave a comment!

There is a small market on the ground floor of my office building. You might miss it if you walked by quickly. They only accept cash and their hours are 7AM-3PM. They have amazing sandwiches for dirt cheap – almost all of which are meat packed.

Given that I’ve been trying to really cut down on my meat intake this year, I’ve been opting recently for the only vegetarian sandwich on the menu which also happens to be delicious.

There are 48 sandwiches on the menu. This is #48.

A vegetarian feast.

Grilled cheese purists are probably not down with this sandwich. Some may say that it does not actually qualify as a grilled cheese because 1) it is on pita and 2) it has more “other stuff” than cheese.

I’ve opted to include it in the running though because it is original and unique and if I pile on enough cheese than I can still count it.

So let’s make them!

The Number 48 (makes 2 sandwiches)

- 1/2 onion, sliced
- 3 – 4 mushrooms, sliced
- 1/2 bell pepper, sliced
- 1/2 poblano, sliced
- 4-6 ounces pepper jack or your cheese of choice and adjust amount depending on your love of cheese
- 1 tomato sliced
- 1/2 avocado, sliced
- bean sprouts
- 2 pitas ( I like the long ones, they allow for maximum filling.)

Helpful Equipment:
- Nonstick Griddle

This is one of those recipes where it helps to get everything ready before you start cooking as it goes pretty fast. So slice up your veggies.

These are the base of the sandwich.

Slice your pitas in half. Also slice your tomatoes, avocados, and cheese separately since those don’t go on the grill right away. No need to chop the sprouts unless you just really like chopping things.

Plus get these ready.

Put a tablespoon or two of vegetable oil on your griddle or pan and throw your onions, shrooms, and peppers down. Get them all mixed up and happy together.

Get these guys cooking.

After just a few minutes, they will be cooked down. Split them into to even piles and put your cheese on top of them. I put my heat on low at this point to make sure I don’t burn the veggies under the cheese.

If you don’t have a big griddle like this, you can use a large saute pan. I actually made this sandwich again using a pan just to make sure you could (and because Betsy loved it so much that she requested it two nights in a row.)

See how the pita is down in the background? You want to do that. You can toast them open-faced in the oven also. Either way you do it, oil them slightly so they get a bit crispy.

Divided up for the sandwiches.

As your cheese melts, add your tomato and avocado to the inside of the pita. You want them to heat up slightly.

Avocado makes for good sandwiches.

Add your veggie and cheese mix on top of the avocado and tomato, top with a good layer of sprouts, cut the bad boy in half and enjoy.

Dreamy.

I have to toot my own horn here a bit and say that my version may have been better than the original #48. It is a bit spicy, has some crunch, and lots of different textures and flavors. Betsy proclaimed it better than the current leading grilled cheese. I’m not sure that I’m quite ready to make it the leader, but it is a damn tasty sandwich.

The ratings!

Cheesiness: 8. The cheese melts nicely because it is exposed more directly to the heat. Also, if you use pepper jack like I did then it is spicy also which is awesome.
Bread: 8. The pita has a nice texture, but it can be a bit flimsy and tough to work with.
Fillings: 10. There are a lot of fillings but they work really well together. It’s a great blend.
Overall: 9. I think this tied the pesto sandwich. I think this is an interesting sandwich, but the pesto and brie is such a pure, awesome grilled cheese, I couldn’t rank this over that one.

No doubt though, #48 is a very solid sandwich.

This was my latest attempt:

It's hard to see the honey.

I got the idea for this sandwich from Kathy (@PaniniKathy) and she posted a similar version of the sandwich here. She uses a Swiss cheese called, raclette, which I was completely unable to find in stores near me. I figured Gruyere would be a good substitute. I was right.

This sandwich is pretty easy to make. First, I sliced up my Gruyere into sticks. I used a little under a 1/4 pound of cheese per sandwich. I made big sandwiches though.

1/2 pound of cheese = 2 sandwiches plus some to snack on.

As for the bread, I tried again to use Italian white bread for this sandwich and again I was a bit disappointed with the result. It was alright, but I’m not looking for alright. I’m looking for perfect. I don’t think it is quite dense enough to make a really good grilled cheese.

As I was buttering my bread, I was smacked in the face by inspiration though. I thought that maybe, just maybe, honey and Gruyere would go excellent with cinnamon, so I sprinkled some onto my bread essentially making cinnamon toast.

The kitchen muse smacketh me.

As you can see, the bread had some sizable holes in it. This is not recommended when cooking with melted cheese and honey.

I like to build my sandwich in a cold pan and then slowly heat it up. Sometimes people throw the ingredients in a super hot pan which is great for effect, but then your bread cooks before your cheese is melted which is disaster.

This way you can take your time.

Obviously, I only butter and cinnamon one side of the bread. Next, add the honey. You do not need a lot and if you put more than about a Tablespoon it will just melt out of your sandwich and burn. A little goes a long way here.

Don't over-honey!

These things were tricky to cook. Definitely the most challenging of the grilled cheeses I’ve made here. The filling wanted to fall through the holes in the bread so I had to keep flipping a lot. Also, the bread was pretty thick so it took longer to melt the cheese.

Luckily, I’m getting to be an expert at the grilled cheese.

That's some good meltiness.

I must say this sandwich was better than I was expecting. The honey gives a very subtle sweetness to the whole thing and I think the cinnamon was a nice touch if I do say so myself.

Let’s rate it:

Cheesiness: 8. Gruyere is a great cheese. It is a bit pricey, but it makes for a great sandwich.
Bread: 7. I think I can do a lot better on the bread. It was pretty good once it was cooked, but very hard to deal with during cooking.
Fillings: 8. Honey and cinnamon worked great together in this sandwich.
Overall: 8. This was a very good sandwich, but not quite as good as the current leader in the race to find the perfect grilled cheese.

Have a sandwich that you think could compete? Leave it in a comment or shoot me an email!

This was heavenly.

This sandwich is not terribly hard. I guess the hardest part is making the pesto. You could totally buy it if you wanted, but I never think that store bought pesto has quite the kick that homemade can have.

Pesto

- 1/2 cup basil
- 4 Tablespoons olive oil (adjust to your taste/texture)
- 3 cloves garlic
- handful of pecans
- 2 Tablespoons cilantro
= Salt and Pepper

This is pretty cheap pesto for me to make as I usually have some ingredients laying around for a pesto. The only thing I bought for this was the cilantro (we have a small basil plant that keeps us happy in that department). There are tons of pesto substitutions you can use. Instead of pecans try pine nuts. Instead of cilantro, try parsley. Or leave them out.

Don’t stress about it. It will be delicious. I don’t think I’ve ever made the exact same pesto twice.

Add these things to the basil.

Anyway, once you have all of these things, give them a few pulses in your processor. If you don’t have a food processor, I guess you could very finely chop up the ingredients and then stir it together with the olive oil. That would be much more work though obviously.

Very simple. Very delicious.

The second part of this sandwich is the brie. This makes this sandwich a bit expensive, but man is it good. I found an 8 ounce wheel of brie for $6. I was actually planning on using Mozzarella but they were out so I went with this. Either would work I think.

8 ounces of love.

The thing about brie is that it is supposed to be eaten as a spread. It is really soft and kind of awkward to work with. I cut off the rind on my wheel and then tried to slice up the stuff. This amount of cheese made two large sandwiches.

Slicing brie is not the easiest task in the kitchen.

The third ingredient in this equation is the bread. I went with a nice sourdough which was a good choice. It held up perfect to the filling. I think sourdough may be the perfect grilled cheese bread actually because it cooks really evenly and doesn’t burn as quickly as white bread. At the same time, it doesn’t overpower the filling like a rye bread would do.

Butter up one side well on four slices.

This is my bread and butter.

Then flip over each piece and slather on the pesto. You want pesto on the top and the bottom! My fear at this step was that this would be too pesto-y. Nope. It was awesome.

Don't be afraid of the slather technique.

Then I used my pan as a place to build my sandwich. Piled in my brie and put on the top piece.

This pan is not on yet... just using it to assemble.

Cook these guys on medium heat until the brie is melted and the bread is nice and brown.

Holy Pesto.

As with the other two sandwiches I’ve made, I’ll try to rank this guy.

Cheesiness: 8. Brie is just a lovely cheese for a sandwich. It melts quickly and is very gooey and delicious.
Bread: 10. I don’t think I can beat the bread on this sandwich as far as grilled cheese goes. I’m going to keep trying, but this was supreme.
Fillings: 8. Pesto was perfect and flavorful and complimented the cheese well.
Overall: 9. This is going to be a tough sandwich to beat.

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Mr. Crunchy indeed.

Only the French could think of this amazingly rich creation: A grilled ham and cheese topped with a rich buttery cheese sauce and broiled. In fact there is even a version called the Croque Madame which has a fried egg on top. I’m sure that is yummy but it seemed like overkill to me. A 1,000 calorie sandwich – excellent. A 1,200 calorie sandwich – CRAZY.

So let’s get started. I adapted a version I saw on Ina Garten’s site. The problem is that Ina’s recipe makes enough for like 8 sandwiches. Maybe Ina can eat more than one of these, but I definitely can’t. (Joke Ina. You know I love you.) You will need:

- 8 ounces deli ham
- 2 cup (apprx.) grated Gruyere or good Swiss cheese
- 1/4 cup grated Parm
- 1 Tablespoon butter
- 1 Tablespoon Flour
- 3/4 cup milk
- Sandwich or French bread
- Salt and Pepper
- Mustard (optional)
- Nutmeg? (She includes this. I didn’t because it sounded like crazy talk.

The basics.

I cut pretty thick pieces of bread and toasted them for a few minutes in the oven at 500 degrees. You want them pretty crispy. This is Mr. Crunchy. Not Mr. Schmooshy.

After the toasting, assemble the sandwich. I put mustard on mine, but Betsy doesn’t like mustard and it was good without as well. I put mustard on anything I can because I consider it the dream condiment. You want to use about 1/2 cup of your Swiss inside the sandwich. It acts as a glue.

The start of a beautiful friendship.

While I worked on my sauce, I let these bake just for a few minutes at 300 degrees just to melt the cheese inside and heat up the ham.

Now let’s talk cheese sauce or as the French call it a Bechamel sauce. First thing you need to do for this (and the hardest part) is make a Roux. Basically, it is butter and flour which cooks down a bit and thickens anything you put in it. Good stuff.

Butter in a pan.

After your Tablespoon of butter melts, slowly whisk in your flour a teaspoon at a time. It should resemble a paste and start to brown a bit. Don’t go watch a movie or anything while this is cooking, it can very easily burn. In fact, guess what. I burned mine which is why the above pot is different from the below pot. It’s like 10 cents worth of ingredients. Just do it over if you break it.

A Roux. Round two.

This Roux is almost done. Probably another thirty seconds. Then you slowly whisk in your milk. If you pour all your milk in at once, the flour will clump up and you will have milk dumplings. NOT good on a sandwich. So pour slow and you will eventually get a creamy sauce which you should let cook and bubble a bit on low heat for a few minutes. You want it to be pretty thick. Then add in all of your cheeses and salt and pepper and Nutmeg if you are being a rebel.

This will be a familiar process to you if you’ve ever made serious baked macaroni and cheese. It is almost the exact same process.

A serious cheese sauce.

Then it is as simple as spooning this amazing sauce over your sandwich and broiling it for about 5 minutes until it is brown and bubbly.

The sandwich is assembled.

This was a pretty good sandwich. It’s possible that I could make it better I think. The bread was a bit thick, but I’m being pretty critical. It was damn good. Let’s judge it on the same qualities as the first sandwich:

Cheesiness: 9. It is tough to imagine a cheesier sandwich. I won’t give it a 10 just so I have room for improvement.

Bread: 7. I think it was a good bread, but I think I cut it a bit too thick. It was also a bit soft. Something with more heft might have worked better.

Fillings: 7. The ham is a good choice. But that is really all that is in it. Not that it needs anything else. The egg might be a good addition.

Overall: 8. An absolutely fantastic, rich sandwich. Great for a Fall afternoon.

Mr. Crunchy

Got an idea for a sandwich to put on the Grilled Cheese Trials? Email it to me or leave it in a comment.

I’ve been battling for years the idea of the perfect grilled cheese. There is the simple question of what kind of cheese would go on such a thing, but there are more subtle questions regarding bread, other fillings, toppings, and accompanying drinks.

It’s all very complicated and I figure there is no better way than just to try a bunch of different kinds. I’ve made many different kinds in my years, but now it is time to get scientific. So these are the grilled cheese trials. Let’s start with:

Um. This was good.

Bacon and Caramelized Onion with Sharp Cheddar

There isn’t a recipe per se for grilled cheeses which is one reason why I like them. I used French bread for this which was a decent choice, but I’m not sure that I grilled it to a crispy perfection. I might give the bread a second try though.

I went with a basic New York Sharp Cheddar. It’s impossible to go wrong with this cheese: Melty and tasty. I want it right now even though I just ate it. With bacon and caramelized onion, it was a full sandwich.

Not everything was positive about this sandwich. There is definitely room for improvement. First, I needed to crisp the bacon more. I thought it was good, but you need it crispy if you are putting it in this sandwich (which is tough for me because I like my bacon a bit chewy typically.) It wasn’t crispy enough though so when I took a bite I would rip out a whole piece of bacon. When this happened that particular bite would be delicious, but the next few bites would be lacking bacony goodness.

So if I’m being scientific about all of this, I need a good rating system. I’m going to try to measure these sandwiches using the following ridiculous ratings (1-10 scale):

Cheesiness: How good was the cheese? Did it melt appropriately? Was it well distributed?

Bread: Did the bread toast well and hold up to the fillings? Was it crunchy yet giving?

Fillings: Did the filling compliment or overpower the cheese? Did they make the sandwich hard to eat?

Overall: This could include variables like ease in making, situation, and my general mood.

So how would the first sandwich of many, the bacon and caramelized onion with sharp cheddar rate?

Cheesiness: 7
Bread: 7
Fillings: 5
Overall: 6 (kind of a pain to make the onions and bacon. A lot a planning. Not the best payoff. Could have been better with crispier bacon.)

Keep in mind I’m being extremely hard on this sandwich. It was freakin’ good. I just think there is lots of room for improvement. Be on the lookout for more Grilled Cheese trials.