This is not the first time I’ve written about grilled cheese on this sandwich blog. But this is the first time I’m going to get serious and lay out some specific techniques for how you can both make what I consider to be a perfect grilled cheese as well as push the boundaries and make more exciting sandwiches.
What is a good grilled cheese?
A good grilled cheese is made from a comforting amount of melty cheese between two slices of bread that have been griddled or pan-seared until golden brown. The cheese in the middle is warmed through and ooey and gooey, and the exterior of the bread is crispy and very savory from being almost fried in fat. A well-made grilled cheese can evoke memories of your childhood sandwiches, while at the same time being as comforting as a creamy hug.
Grilled cheese sandwiches kick ass. They’re very simple, but still a top-tier sandwich in my opinion. And today, I’ve collected some tips and strategies for how you can make your grilled cheese sandwiches even better. But first, I want to talk about my self-imposed rule on what differentiates a grilled cheese from a melt.
My grilled cheese rule
My number one rule for grilled cheese is: no meat. Cheese, sauce, condiments, simple vegetables, and some seasoning or herbs are the only additions that should be allowed in a grilled cheese.
What does this rule mean? To me, it means you can’t make a grilled cheese with ham. That’s a ham and cheese melt or a grilled ham and cheese. Any time you’re adding meat (like bacon), you’re moving away from what a “grilled cheese” is. The addition of meat turns a grilled cheese into a sandwich where the focus, flavors, and textures shift in favor of the meat, and that’s a different type of sandwich. Don’t get me wrong, a bacon and cheese melt is fantastic, and if you like bacon, it’s likely to beat a grilled cheese in a 1-to-1 matchup, which is part of why I think the grilled cheese needs to stay fairly simple.
And that’s my main rule. I feel that you can add something like grilled onions or a tomato slice, and it will still retain the integrity of being a grilled cheese, because a simple vegetable doesn’t distract too much from the flavor and comfort of the cheese.
Now that we know what I think a grilled cheese is, I’ll share some cooking techniques that I’ve learned after making a whole bunch of these cheesy sandwiches.
Grilled cheese cooking techniques
Here are a couple of tips or strategies that will help you make a really good grilled cheese sandwich.
Use a cast-iron pan or griddle
You don’t have to abide by this tip, but I think it does make grilled cheese easier.
You can make a good grilled cheese with whatever pan you own. You can see below that I have at least one example of myself making a grilled cheese in a non-stick pan. You can also use an electric griddle, which is usually non-stick, but you get more consistent surface temperatures with cast iron, and you also are able to use a metal spatula in cast iron, which means you can get a good, clean scrape under the sandwich when needed.
Also, cast iron pans and griddles are typically fairly cheap, and if you buy one new, they almost always come pre-seasoned, which means they will have a surface that you can cook on without everything getting stuck to the pan.
But for me, the main reason why I like to make grilled cheese sandwiches on cast iron pans is because they allow you to control the surface temperature very easily, which is the most important factor you should be considering.
“Grill” low and slow
The best way I’ve found to make a grilled cheese is on a medium-low pan for a longer time than you might imagine. I’m not the only person who feels this way. Grilling low and slow is not the only way to make a grilled cheese, but it’s the most traditional way. I have an alternate method just down below that involves a broiler, and if you want to cook a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches, you can find oven sheet pan grilled cheese recipes, which I do not experience with. I do have a lot of experience with griddling low and slow, though, so this is my tried and true method.
If I’m just making a standard grilled cheese on regular sliced bread, I prefer my pan or griddle to be at a temperature around 275 F to 300 F (135 to 150 C). You can buy electric griddles that have temperature settings but I don’t have one of those, so instead I use a infrared thermometer and the knob on my stove to keep the temperature of the pan under 300 degrees.
At the controlled and fairly low temperature, I cook my grilled cheese sandwiches for 5 minutes on the first side and then flip for an additional 4 or 5 minutes.
This is normally not enough time to get the exterior browned, but the cheese should have started to melt at this point. So I will keep cooking until the exterior is the color and toastiness that I require by flipping the sandwich every 1 minute or so.
Cooking at a lower temperature ensures that the exterior of the bread doesn’t cook too quickly because one of the more important factors in a grilled cheese is getting the cheese deep in the sandwich exterior to be fully melty. This will not happen if the sandwich is cooked quickly unless you attempt “cheater methods,” which I have written about before.
Cover the pan
A great tip for making grilled cheese sandwiches is to introduce steam into the equation. You can do this by trapping the heat from the pan or griddle with a pan lid, sheet pan, or a metal bowl covering the sandwich. This technique will help the center of the sandwich heat up while the bottom of the sandwich is cooking on the hot surface.
Cheater technique
This technique will work if you’re impatient. I’m impatient, and there have been times in my life when I tried to cook a grilled cheese at too high a temperature, and if you do that, the exterior of the bread will be dark brown before the cheese in the middle of the sandwich is even warm.
You can avoid all of this if you want to use what I call the cheater grilled cheese technique. You do this with the use of a toaster oven or oven broiler. You broil/toast the bread and cheese open-faced until the cheese starts to melt. Then you close and/or build the sandwich and griddle it in butter until the exterior is perfectly golden brown and crispy.
This isn’t a whole lot faster than being patient and cooking a sandwich low and slow, but it does ensure that you will have melty cheese, and it gives you the insurance that the bread won’t be burned before the sandwich is cooked properly. Don’t cook a grilled cheese like this for a fancy chef or anything, but if you struggle with cooking at too high of a temperature or if you’re just super excited about the cheese being melty for a cheese pull video that you want to share on Instagram, you can try this cheater technique.
If you need the perfect grilled cheese, here’s my cheater recipe that will not fail you.
Cheater grilled cheese
Want a melty grilled cheese but can't always get the timing right? This cheater recipe allows you to always have melty cheese and a perfectly toasty sandwich.
Get RecipeInvest in a panini maker?
I don’t really think a panini maker is the best idea for a grilled cheese. It will work, and it’s a good idea and appliance in general for a sandwich enthusiast to own, but you can make a great grilled cheese without a panini maker. The panini press will simplify the cooking process, but if you don’t have room for another gadget, you can easily make a good grilled cheese with just a pan.
The science behind the panini press is that both sides of the bread get pressed, warmed, and griddled at the same time, and because both sides of the press are hot and close together, they end up helping to heat the middle of the cheese quickly while the bread crisps up. The panini machine also should have some temperature controls so that you can make a griddled sandwich the same way every time.
I own a panini press, and I still prefer to make my grilled cheeses in a pan.
Use a cooling rack!
I sound like a broken record when I talk about cooling racks, but they’re pretty important for the process of a grilled cheese. When you cook pretty much anything, it does not immediately finish the cooking process when the heat of an oven or pan turns off. Your grilled cheese sandwich is still hot and cooking when you remove it from the pan, and if you immediately move it to a plate or cutting board and leave it there, it will start to steam itself.
You can easily test this by doing what I just told you not to do. Put the sandwich directly on a plate after cooking it. Take a minute or two to make yourself a drink, and when you come back and pick up the sandwich, you will visibly be able to see a wet spot where the sandwich was sitting. This means that any attempt you made during the cooking process to create a nice crispy, almost fried exterior is negated by steam.
Place the sandwich on a cooling rack to rest for a couple of minutes, and you will still have a crispy piece of bread on the bottom of the sandwich because the airflow around the bread will allow it to cool without extra unnecessary steam. If you do not have a cooling rack, you can simply place your completed sanwich on the rack inside your oven or toaster oven or you can rig togther a simple rest for a sandwich with two chopsticks or even two knives on a counter where you can rest your sandwich on while it cools just a little.
Grilled cheese ingredients and components
Now I’d like to discuss some of the components or ingredients that you might want to use in your next grilled cheese.
Simple bread slices
For this grilled cheese sandwich blog post, I made my own Pullman white sandwich bread recipe, which creates a nice soft piece of white bread that works great for a grilled cheese. If you don’t want to make your own bread for a grilled cheese, I would strongly suggest just using your favorite bread. I personally think a grilled cheese works best with a softer slice of bread, but if you want to use a firm slice of sourdough, that will work as well.
Pullman loaf bread
A soft white loaf with square slices that are perfect for grilled cheese or Texas toast. Slice as thick or as thin as your sandwich situation requires.
Get RecipeIf you’d prefer a more rustic, oval-ish slice, you could use this recipe as well.
Rustic sandwich bread loaf
4 hours and 10 minutesCheese options
I rarely use just one type of cheese in a grilled cheese. When I was a kid, I made grilled cheese sandwiches with just one slice of American or cheddar, but I use more than one slice these days. Cheese is the focus of this sandwich, so I use at least two slices and sometimes as many as four slices, depending on the size of the sliced bread. If you’re using regular, commercially made white bread, you might find that 3 slices is too many.
If you’ve never made a grilled cheese sandwich before, I would suggest you start with one slice of American and one slice of Cheddar cheese and go from there.
Mayonnaise vs butter on the exterior
This is a hotly debated topic all across the internet. What should you spread on the outside of your grilled cheese sandwich to help cook and crisp up the exterior? Some say mayonnaise and some will die on the hill that butter is better. I have thoughts, but in my tests, I honestly think the correct solution depends on what you have on hand.
Which is better? Mayonnaise or Butter?
I think this question requires a complicated answer. They’re both good options. The main factor is that mayonnaise is easy to spread, and cold butter is not. The best grilled cheese sandwiches are cooked with a thin layer of fat on the exterior, so you need to make sure you can easily spread that mayo or butter onto the bread.
If you’re a butter-on-the-counter type of person or if you have the patience to soften butter, then you can use that, but you should be aware that it could potentially cook slightly faster than mayonnaise would (not in my testing, but people who are smarter than I think it might). If you’re a butter-in-the-fridge sort of person, then you would be better off using mayonnaise on the exterior of the sandwich.
Mayo has a higher smoke point, which means in theory the exterior of the bread that it is slathered on is supposed to turn from dark golden brown to black at a slower rate than butter. But I have tested this a time or two, and I just don’t see that it makes much difference because I try to keep my pan temperature below the smoking point of butter in the first place.
I honestly don’t think that butter vs mayonnaise on the exterior of a grilled cheese sandwich changes the flavor at all, or at least it’s negligible. If you hate mayonnaise on your sandwiches, you can still use it to help toast the bread because you’ll never taste it after the sandwich is cooked.
Can you see much difference in the sandwiches above? I can’t. They also taste very, very similar as well.
So my rule of thumb for a grilled cheese sandwich is this: is your butter already softened? If yes, you can use that. If your butter is hard and cold in the fridge, you’ll be much better off using mayonnaise. If you’re like me, and you already have the mayonnaise out on the counter to spread on the inside of the sandwich, you might as well use that on the exterior as well.
Sauces or jams
Sauces are a great way to add something interesting to your next grilled cheese, and in that grouping of sauces, I do include jams or jelly. Things like hot honey (or regular honey), any sort of mustard, pesto, chimichurri, or something that might be more seasonal, like cranberry sauce, would add a contrasting flavor that works well with cheese.
Condiments like fancy mustards or mayos are also a great option to use in a grilled cheese. I know some folks think that a grilled cheese doesn’t need condiments, but they are easily the simplest way to add additional flavor.
Chili crunch or crisp is also a fantastic addition to a grilled cheese.
Fried mustard grilled cheese?
There’s a pretty popular technique when making smashburgers to add mustard to the exterior of a burger patty and then flip it over and sear it on a griddle. So I tried it on a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches. It works. It’s a subtle addition, but it does actually work.
Basically, I spread mayonnaise into a thin layer on the exterior of the bread and then squirt and spread on some basic yellow mustard. You could go nuts with any sort of mustard, but just make sure it’s fairly spread out. Also, you should be aware that if it’s a honey mustard or a mustard with some sweetness, it might brown quickly.
Newsflash: mustard grilling works! It’s a bit subtle, not super flavorful and you’ll get a similar flavor if you just put mustard inside the sandwich as a condiment, but when you grill the sandwich with mustard on the exterior, you end up with a seared mustard flavor directly on each bite when the mustard is cooked on the exterior of the sandwich.
Just be careful that you don’t over-darken and cook the mustard too long because burned mustard isn’t a great flavor.
If you do decide to mustard-griddle a sandwich, make sure you eat the sandwich with the mustard-griddled side down so that that exterior surface hits your tongue and tastebuds for the maximum enjoyment.
Crispy cheese skirt grilled cheese
Adding a “cheese skirt” to a grilled cheese sandwich is pretty easy, but it does require a little bit of patience. The point is that you’re making a normal grilled cheese, and then you’re going to add an extra layer of crispy, fried cheese to the exterior of one side of the sandwich. This extra bit of cheese gets cooked directly in the pan so that the moisture in the cheese is removed, and then it becomes a crispy textural addition to the finished sandwich.
The trick is cooking the cheese until it starts to lose almost all of its moisture, and it becomes less sticky. The cheese will start to darken (note the photos), and it will become easier to adjust with the spatula.
If you’ve made smashburgers before, scraping up the cheese under the sandwich will be similar to how you scrape the burger to make sure you don’t lose any of the exterior crust. Once you’ve allowed the cheese to cook long enough, removing it from the pan will actually be pretty easy. If you try to move it too early, though, you might end up with a sticky mess.
Extra cheesy goodness grilled cheese sandwich with a crispy cheese skirt recipe
Here are a couple of additional photos of a grilled cheese sandwich with a crispy cheese skirt. You can get the full recipe just below.
Extra crispy, cheesy goodness, grilled cheese sandwich
This comforting grilled cheese sandwich is cheesy on the inside with a crispy cheese crust on the outside. The addition of fried cheese really adds a layer of crunchy texture that adds to the sandwich experience.
Get RecipeThe perfect, simple grilled cheese sandwich photos and recipe
Here are some photos of what to me is the perfect, easy-to-make grilled cheese. I have shared the recipe below as well. It should take you around 15 minutes because you need to cook the sandwich at a lower temperature to ensure that the middle of the sandwich is warmed all the way through and melty.
Don’t forget to let the sandwich rest on a cooling rack!
The perfect, simple grilled cheese sandwich
The most comforting grilled cheese experience ever starts with a low and slow cook that produces an ooey, gooey, cheesy sandwich with a crispy bread exterior.
Ingredients:
- 2 slices of your favorite sandwich bread
- 2 to 3 slices of cheese (at least 1 of them should be deli-style American cheese)
- condiments like mustard or mayo (optional)
- 2 tablespoons mayonnaise (or softened butter)
Suggested Equipment
Directions:
Sandwich assembly: Add any condiments you like to one side of two slices of bread. Add two to three slices of bread (or around 1/4 to 1/2 cup of shredded cheese) to one slice of bread, and then sandwich the cheese between the two slices of bread.
Sandwich cooking: add a skillet or griddle to your stove and turn the heat way down to medium-low. If you have an electric griddle with a temperature gauge, shoot for 275 F (135 C). If you have an infrared thermometer, try to make sure the pan isn't getting much warmer than 300 F (148 C).
Spread around 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise (or soft butter) on the exterior of one slice of bread. When the pan or griddle has preheated for a couple of minutes, add the sandwich, mayo/butter side down, in the pan. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes with the lid on top of the pan. If you do not have a lid, you can use an upside-down metal bowl or a sheet pan to form a cover over the pan. The trick is to allow the sandwich to steam while cooking so that the interior cheese starts to melt.
After 4 to 5 minutes, spread another tablespoon of mayonnaise (or butter) onto the exterior of the top slice of bread and then flip the sandwich.
Cook the sandwich for another 3 to 4 minutes and then continue cooking and flipping the sandwich every 1 minute until both sides of the sandwich are golden brown and crispy.
Remove the sandwich from the pan and allow it to cool for 2 minutes on a cooling rack. If you do not have a cooling rack, you can use a rack from your oven or even something like two knives or chopsticks to keep the sandwich elevated off the surface. If your sandwich goes directly to a plate or cutting board, it will steam itself on the bottom and become soggy.
Notes:
American cheese does not have a whole lot of flavor, but it melts really well and is very creamy. So my suggestion would be to use one slice of American cheese and then add another cheese that has a flavor that you like. You could use something like Swiss cheese or even a sharper Cheddar to bring flavor to add to the creaminess that American cheese provides.
Mayonnaise vs Butter on the exterior of the bread: if your butter is not softened, then you should use mayonnaise spread lightly on the outside of the bread. Mayonnaise has a lot of oil in it, which makes it a good option to use to help fry and crisp up the outside of the sandwich. If your butter is softened, you can use that. But they both should cook about the same and have a similar flavor when the sandwich is fully cooked.
Check back next week
Next week, we’ll be revisiting a sandwich that you might be shocked was on a McDonald’s menu in the recent past. Ours is WAY better than McD’s, though. And it’s easy.
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