(slow, cool music) Hey, everybody, it's Thee Burger Dude. And today I wanna show you how I made the best
grilled cheese of my life, and it also just so happens to be vegan. I had to conduct a few
tests in order to get there. So we're gonna make a whole bunch of grilled cheeses today as well. We're gonna make one classic style with no fancy footwork, just a straight up
traditional grilled cheese. Then I'm gonna veganize Chef John's famous
inside-out grilled cheese. And then last, but definitely not least, the best grilled cheese I've ever made featuring a Cheeto-style ingredient. In addition to that, I'm gonna experiment with different ways to get vegan cheese to melt since we all know that can
sometimes be a struggle. But enough yapping, let's make
some vegan grilled cheese. So let's start with a
classic grilled cheese. And one of the first things we
should discuss is the bread. One of the most frequently
asked questions I get is about where to find vegan bread. But for me the vast majority of bread at the stores near me are vegan. The only ones that typically
aren't are brioche, Hawaiian, and anything with honey in the name. But obviously check the
ingredients to be sure. Now, for our grilled cheese, good old white bread
is the obvious choice. I like using a thicker
cut like this Texas toast. As you can see here,
it's a basic white bread, only about twice as thick as normal. You can also use this bread as well since it's cut kind of thick. This is actually one of my
favorite breads out there. So if you can find it,
it's highly recommended. And of course, I really think sourdough is a solid choice too. So feel free to use
whatever bread you like. But like I said, today
I'll be using Texas toast. For the cheese, I really like
these Daiya American Slices. Daiya has a bad rep because it used to be the worst vegan cheese on
the market, like by a lot. But they've done a total 180
over the past year or so, and these American slices
are some of my favorite. But use whatever cheese you like. Now, the next thing to
talk about is the butter. I've got this Melt brand,
which I rather like. I left it out because we want
it to be at room temperature so it's easily spreadable. Nothing worse than thrashing your bread with some hard-ass butter. I left it out for about 15 minutes or so and it wasn't quite soft enough. So I just nuked it in the
microwave for about eight seconds and it was perfect. If you need to microwave yours, just do it for or a few seconds at a time as it will melt very quickly. So now that our butter is softened, let's give our Texas
toast a good slathering and really try to get complete coverage. Use plenty of butter,
but don't use too much. Just do your best to get
a nice even coat on there. And then next, what we want
to do is get a cold pan. And this was something I
learned when doing my research. You don't want to throw
your sandwich on a hot pan because you won't melt the cheese without burning your bread. On top of that, we want
to cook it on medium low. So these do take a little bit of time, but I swear it's totally worth it. Now, I kind of biffed up this first one. I forgot that I wanted to
dry toast the bread first so that when I added the cheese the residual heat would help melt it. I'm not sure if it has
that big of an impact but any little thing helps when it comes to melting vegan cheese. So after I realized my mistake, I just simply started over and yeah, maybe the butter melted a little but it really didn't matter. This thing turned out great
anyway, so don't worry about it. And once you've dry toasted
your bread for a bit what we're going to do is flip it and then we're going
to add our vegan cheese and then our other piece of bread. And that's it. Not too difficult, right? At this point all you got to do is relax and let the grilled cheese do its thing. I would say let this grill
for at least five minutes, and probably closer to eight. Remember we want this on medium low. Check it around five minutes though, you really don't want to burn your bread. Once it looks good, give
her a flip and look at that. Make sure to block the
camera with your hands so no one can enjoy the beautiful brown buttery bread you got. Okay, there you go. That's better. Now. I know I said to relax, but I was a little worried
the cheese wouldn't melt. So I went ahead and
covered it with a dome. Then a few minutes later I unveiled it and the cheese did indeed melt, though maybe not with the kind
of gumption we would like. I flipped it over to see if the other side got nice and brown and look at that. It did. So now all we need to do
is remove it from the pan and it's time to eat. So I went ahead and I cut it in half, hoping for the cheese pull
that we all know and love and...
(drum roll) (sad trombone plays)
Nope, didn't get it. However, this was still super
good and I have no regrets. The bread was browned perfectly. The cheese was super melty and delicious, and this was without a doubt,
a solid grilled cheese. I mean, look at that. Just perfect simplicity. But can we make it slightly
more complicated and better? Absolutely. Now the next grilled
cheese we're gonna make is the inside-out one by Chef John. And it's called inside-out because we're going to grill some cheese on the outside of the sandwich, which will create a crispy, cheesy crust. This was my first time making this and my feelings were a little mixed but more on that in a bit. I'm starting off with a Daiya Block because this grilled cheese
requires shredded cheese and I prefer shredding my own, but again, use whatever cheese you like. And I want to say it's as easy
as just grilling the sandwich with some cheese on the outside, but my ding-dong brain had a hard time figuring out when to add the cheese or when I should butter the bread. I'm sure I made it more
complicated than it is. I could have just watched his video again but I was convinced I could figure it out. And eventually I did. What I ended up doing was
grilling the bread and butter. I tried to apply some on the other side while it was grilling, but the heat was already melting it. So I just waited until
they were golden brown, removed them from the pan, and then added some more vegan butter. Then grilled them on the other side, added my vegan cheese, then
the other piece of bread. Make sure it's on the right side. Grill that for about four minutes or so, then give it a flip. We're gonna add some
cheese on the outside, grill that for four minutes or so again, then we're gonna flip it
again, add more cheese, we're gonna grill it for
another four minutes or so, and I bet you didn't see this coming, but you're gonna flip it again and then you're gonna grill
it for one last four minutes and there you go. That's basically it. And I got to say, I was
super excited for this one. Now we didn't get the cheese
pull again, but you know what? It didn't matter. This thing was so freaking good. So ridiculously cheesy and indulgent. My only complaint was
it was kind of greasy. I know that sounds weird, but the outer layer cheese
was maybe a bit much. Don't get me wrong. I'd still eat like 10 of these. However, I came up with an
idea to make this even better. But first I wanted to see if I could maybe get a better cheese pull. So I conducted a couple of experiments. And the first thing I did was to use my trusty sodium citrate. If you've been here recently, you know that this is my favorite way to make a cheese sauce, but I wanted to see if it
would work in a grilled cheese. So all we got to do is combine some of it with a little bit of water. We're gonna bring that to a boil. And then we're going to add
in some vegan cheese shreds, I'm using Violife. We're gonna melt that all up and then we have our beautiful,
velvety cheese sauce. I mean, look at that. So I'm going to go ahead and add this to a Silicon mold I got. And then we're going to
add that to the freezer to see if it'll firm up
and maybe be sliceable so we can make some American slices that'll hopefully stretch. However, after a couple hours
it was still pretty soft and I was getting impatient. It looks a little weird, I know, but you know what? American cheese is pretty weird. So I feel like I nailed it. And now we're going to take some of that weird vegan cheese goop and do our best to get it on some bread, grill it like we do. And then with bated breath,
we'll slice it in half. And look at that, maybe not
a traditional cheese pull, but better than what we've had thus far and to be honest, I still didn't care. This was so much better
than the Daiya slices. The texture was just ridiculous and honestly better than I remembered non-vegan American cheese. I mean, at this point, this was the best grilled
cheese of my life. Vegan or not, everything about
it was just spot on perfect. And on top of that, bonus points for being able to scoop up the cheese that escaped, I mean, check this out. Look at that. Just fricking luxurious, I would say even. But I was curious. Could we make some slices? So I froze some more overnight
and it came out rock hard. I had to let it thaw a bit, and then I was actually able to slice it up with this Mandoline. Now, maybe they came
out a little bit ragged. I think the freezing caused
the moisture to expand and create some pockets kind
of like twice-frozen tofu. So the texture wasn't
as smooth as I'd hoped, but that being said, they were definitely floppy
like American cheese, so there's that. Then as nature dictates, I
went ahead and grilled it up, and it came out pretty much like it did in its weird goopy form as well. So I'm not really sure if
it's worth the effort except, you know, it's a bit easier
to apply it to the bread. But as you can see, it's just
a big old cheese waterfall, which is never a bad thing if you ask me. Now, let's make the best
grilled cheese of my life. I know I said the last one
was, but this one topped it. I thought, "What if we
grind up some Cheetos "and grill the bread in that?" Now, if you're in the U.S.,
we don't have vegan Cheetos, but what we do have is these,
which are super duper good. The Dragon Puffs by Vegan Rob's. They're slightly spicy, but honestly, it's just a baby kick, nothing major. So don't worry about it. If you're in the U.K., these
are accidentally plant-based. You can tell they're English
since flavor is misspelled. I bought these in a
drunken stupor on Amazon in case you wondered how I got them. I didn't fly to England for Cheetos. And here's what the Vegan Rob's look like. Pretty much like a Cheeto. I added them to the blender and they were annihilated instantly. And since this grilled cheese
video is pushing 10 minutes I'll just jump ahead to the end since you really should know how to make a grilled
cheese by this point. Just coat the outside liberally with the Vegan Rob's or
Cheetos dust and grill it up. And there you go. Now, the reason I think this
is the best grilled cheese is because it's like the Chef John one only not nearly as greasy. We get that crispy, cheesy
crust without any grease overwhelming the entire sandwich. And this was absolutely phenomenal, almost to the point that I'm not sure I can ever have a grilled
cheese without it. Really, really ridiculously good. And I really do hope you all try this out or at the very least learn something and had fun with me on my
grilled cheese journey. If you do make it, let
me know how it goes. Tag me in your photos on Instagram. I hope you're all doing great. And I'll see you next time.
