The Best Grilled Cheese You'll Ever Make | Epicurious 101

I'm Frank Proto professional chef and culinary instructor and today I'm going to show you the best way to make grilled cheese at home Frank Style we're talking everything you need to know to make the crispiest crunchiest cheesiest grilled cheese sandwich you've ever had this is grilled cheese 101. when you talk about grilled cheese everyone has an opinion there are tons of variables when it comes to a really good grilled cheese you got your bread you got your mayonnaise or butter you have the cheese that you use as well I believe mine is the best good that I like to use for my grilled cheese has a very tight crumb now if you know anything about bread the inside is the crumb I don't want lots of holes in here so the Wonder Bread is okay you know it's a nice slice it's got a nice tight crumb I find that when you use this type of bread the outside gets nice and crispy but the inside gets a little pasty I don't like the texture of it when it's cooked versus this loaf this one's a little sturdier it's got a nice crust the crumb is pretty tight and it's not mushy and it won't get pasty when it's cooked sourdough is delicious but once you start toasting it it's like razor blades on the roof of your mouth and this also has a lot of air pockets in it which for bread is great but for grilled cheese isn't great the cheese just kind of slips through it's less of a sandwich and more of crispy cheese with bread around it this bread is kind of a nice marriage between a really nice Loaf and a store-bought light it has the best of both worlds all right It's Time To Get Funky with the cheese I have a block of gruyere cheese gruyere cheese is Swiss Cheese's stinkier smellier cousin if you've never had it it is delicious it's got some funk to it it's expensive but what we're also going to use is something a little cheaper American cheese each of these cheeses have properties that I like in a grilled cheese sandwich the American cheese nice and melty the gruyere cheese really flavorful put these two together and we have a really nice combination of cheeses we're going to start out by shredding our gruyere cheese we're gonna cut the Rind off whenever I grate cheese I like to make a small piece right this piece is really big and I have decent sized hands but this one is just too big for my hands so I take a smaller piece of cheese and when I grate it greater on the side not like this I call that granny style I put The Grater on the side I hold the tray and The Grater together and I push this way you're doing less work you're using your body weight not necessarily your muscles I will never use pre-shredded cheese for these sandwiches because pre-shredded cheese has things in there that stop them from sticking together which also makes them not melt really great not melty enough not good shred your own cheese what I'm looking to do here is get a nice crunchy exterior and a nice melty interior and everything about that is controlling your heat and getting the timing right let's get into it medium low heat if I have it on high my Bread's gonna burn before my cheese is melted and then I'm gonna get some mayonnaise I heal your haters out there mayonnaise Not Butter what are you crazy yes I'm crazy mayonnaise in my opinion is the better thing to use here for a grilled cheese it's got a little more zip a little more flavor it doesn't burn like butter you brush it on the bread so that you get a nice even Browning on your bread and then what I do is I take that and I put it in my pan right so the first layer is down and then I'm going to add my American cheese and I'm not worried if my cheese overflows on the sides part of the reason I'm using a non-stick pan is because I'm kind of hoping that happens is the cheese kind of like goes over the sides gets in the holes and gets super crunchy and I want little bits and pieces of that because I think it just makes the overall experience better so I'm gonna do about three slices gruyere the fact that the gruyere is shredded makes it melt a little quicker but I'm going to try and go all the way up to the edges I like to season the inside of my sandwich with salt and pepper cheese has a lot of salt content but I think that a little more salt makes this all the more better just to kind of bump up that cheese flavor I find just doing this or assembling it in the pan you don't have to transport it don't get mayonnaise on your hands it's just a lot easier to do it this way and then this goes on top make sure that you match and now we wait the reason I like to do this over low heat is that it makes it more foolproof the bread's gonna cook slowly and crisp up the cheese is going to melt all the way through it takes a little more time but it's worth it how many times have you had a burnt on the outside grilled cheese with the cheese that's not melted in the middle it is just a cheese sandwich it is not a grilled cheese so to make sure this isn't burning I just check once in a while to see where we're at but we're not even really getting Brown yet and that's okay let's turn this oh my Lord look at that come on how does that not make you smile look at that look I have some cheese Toasties on the edge even I'm impressed with myself so you'll know that your cheese is starting to melt and when you try and pull this top piece of bread off and it sticks right that means the cheese is melting and holding everything together one caution here give it a little more time than you think because the center usually takes a little longer than the rest of the outside of the sandwich my cheese is starting to melt and that's going to give me a nice crispy Edge that is the stuff right there that makes me happy this is looking wonderful I'm getting some cheese leaking out the side and getting crispy in the pan it's gonna be great get your hot grilled cheese sandwich make sure you have Chef hands but look at that this is what I'm talking about this is what makes me happy when I see a grilled cheese sandwich a little bit of cheese leaking out and getting crispy okay nice Brown nice and crisp I'm going to cut it in half quick download motion put it on the plate the only thing I can think to make this sandwich better is a handful of crunchy potato chips and that is my perfect grilled cheese sandwich let's look at this baby oh we got some cheese pull there look at that so when you open up this sandwich you can see my cheese is fully melted it's gooey and delicious I have crunchy cheese along the edges my bread is nice and crispy come on is that not a beautiful grilled cheese sandwich this sandwich has everything creaminess cheesiness crispiness it hits all the notes and that's why I think it's the best grilled cheese sandwich out there [Music]

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 230,424

Keywords: best grilled cheese, best grilled cheese sandwich, cheese sandwich, epi, epicurious, epicurious 101, epicurious101, frank proto, grilled cheese, grilled cheese deluxe, grilled cheese recipe, grilled cheese sandwich, grilled cheese sandwich recipe, grilled sandwich, how to make a grilled cheese, how to make a grilled cheese sandwich, how to make grilled cheese, how to make grilled cheese sandwich, how to make the perfect grilled cheese, perfect grilled cheese, stretchy

Id: aOJRJh1xU20

Length: 6min 56sec (416 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 05 2023