Making Grilled Cheese For Beginners

Part 1 of the First-Time Cooking Starter Pack

One of the easiest things to make is a grilled cheese. At its core, you’re searing two pieces of sandwich bread and melting cheese inbetween them. What makes this a great beginner friendly dish to make is that it’s really easy to tell when it’s ready (spoiler alert, it’s when the cheese is melted and the bread is toasted).

Despite the name, you don’t actually grill the cheese. You’re really just melting it by applying heat on it. There are some fancier techniques that help elevate a grilled cheese, but we’re going to start off by just heating it up in a pan.

Sandwich, Assemble!

The first step is assembling the grilled cheese sandwich. You’ll need 2 slices of sandwich bread and (you guessed it) some type of cheese. I recommend using sliced cheese as it’s the easiest to manage in the pan when you flip the sandwich. Any type of meltable cheese will do like american, cheddar, muenster, pepper jack, swiss, mozzarella, provolone, etc.. Put the cheese inbetween the two slices of bread and you’re done assembling. Easy!

Picking the Right Pan

Next, pick a pan that’ll fit the sandwich. I recommend picking something that is about double the width of the bread. This will give you enough room to use a spatula to flip the sandwich in the pan without causing a mess.

Turn Up the Heat, But Not Too Much..

Heat the pan up on a medium-low heat. After about a minute, put in a bit of butter (I don’t recommend using oil since oil will cause the breat to toast too fast). Once the butter has just about melted down to a liquid, put in your assembled cheese sandwich. If you don’t hear a sizzling sound, that’s okay. Toasting bread in a pan can be quite forgiving when you first place it into the pan. Let it sit in there for about 2-3 minutes before taking a spatula to flip it. When you flip the sandwich, try to be quick about it. The secret to flipping a sandwich in a pan is turning your wrist. Think of it as turning a door knob rather than flipping a page.

Once you’ve flipped the sandwich, you should notice that the bread has turned to a darker color. If you run the spatula across the bread, you might even hear a scraping sound. If you don’t hear that sound, don’t worry about it. Like I said before, toasting bread in a pan can be very forgiving. Let the sandwich sit in the pan for another 2-3 minutes, before flipping it again and checking to see if you can hear the scraping sound by running the spatula across the top of the bread.

Rinse & Repeat

Repeat this every 2-3 minutes until you hear the scraping sound on both sides. It’s important to keep it to every 2-3 minutes so that you don’t burn the bread and evenly heat the cheese from both sides to creating a better melting effect. Since we’re cooking this at a medium-low temperature, the cheese will definitely be melted by the time your bread is toasted. Once it’s toasted to the level you want, remove it from the pan and eat it (or give it to someone else).

Want to be more creative?

• Grilled cheese can be as simple as you want and also as complex as you want. To increase the complexity you can try different cheese blends, toast one side of the bread before assembling the sandwich (the side that’ll touch the cheese), spread the butter onto the bread before putting it into the pan, or even spread mayo on the outside parts of the bread before searing. You can also add non-cheese items, like tomato or bacon, to add more depth to the grilled cheese.

Next up    👉  Making Noodle Soup For Beginners