Give in to our mouthwatering variations on the classic comfort food
Written byMargo TrueMay 28, 2009
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Annabelle Breakey
1 of 16Annabelle Breakey
Basic Grilled Cheese
You can make a fantastic sandwich with just great bread, fresh butter, and your favorite cheese:
1. Butter bread slices on 1 side. Turn them over. Lay 2 cheese slices on 1 bread slice. Top with the other bread slice, buttered side up.
2. Heat a medium frying pan over medium heat. Flick a drop of water into the pan; if it sizzles and evaporates, the pan is hot enough.
3. Put sandwich, buttered side down, in pan. Let it cook 3 to 4 minutes, or until golden and crunchy underneath. Turn and let cook another 3 to 4 minutes, or until golden and crunchy.
Choose a cheese that melts well, such as cheddar, jack, Colby, gruyère, Swiss, fontina, provolone, or brie.
But why stop there?
Annabelle Breakey
2 of 16Annabelle Breakey
Golden Gate Grilled Cheese
This version is like a Monte Cristo ― only better. The parmesan crust is pure genius.
This sandwich is also great served open faced, using toasted bread. Lynn Blair invented it one day when she was trying to figure out what to do with leftover crab.
Single Girl’s Grilled Cheese Sandwich with Artichokes, Tomato, and Black Olives
This sandwich was Kimberly Feltz's comfort food when she was in her 20s, living on her own. "I put all of my favorite foods on it ― it's my 'Treat Yourself Special' grilled cheese sandwich."
Gaines invented this delicious, tangy-sweet sandwich to use the plentiful apricots from his neighbor's tree, which hung over the property line. "He told us we could have all the fruit on our side of the fence," Gaines explains.
Hazelnut-crusted Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Figs
The flavors of a good a cheese plate ― salty, sweet, nutty ― mingle in this sandwich. We loved its hazelnut crust, and also enjoyed the sandwich just as much with ripe teleme cheese from California.
Karen Kadlec uses a slice of regular sharp cheddar and a slice of black pepper cheddar, but the second cheese isn't widely available. If you can find it, by all means try it, but then skip the final sprinkle of black pepper.
Esi Impraim's inspiration: chef Thomas Keller's cheesy fried-egg BLT, featured in the 2004 movie Spanglish. Impraim's version is quite different from the original ― and just as delicious.
Grilled Eggplant and Brie Sandwiches with Olive Tapenade
Charis Janda had trouble finding a restaurant that made eggplant sandwiches, so she invented this very tasty one. If you don't have time to make the tapenade, just substitute your favorite store-bought kind.
The tartness of tomatillos add the same flavor profile of a green apple, which is a natural pairing with cheddar cheese. We added bacon because… well, why not?
“You can make this recipe with any kind of cheese,” says Peggy Smith of Northern California's Cowgirl Creamery. The key is to use a variety of different-textured cheeses—moist with dry, elastic with hard. The recipe is based on one in Cowgirl Creamery Cooks.
Cowgirl Creamery created this variation on their classic grilled cheese recipe in honor of their British friend Kate Arding, cofounder of the cheese magazine Culture. It features Wagon Wheel, one of the Cowgirls’ most delicious creations—a melty cow’s-milk cheese.