Fresh Herb Grilled Cheese Sandwich
The reason I grow a wide variety of herbs every summer might be just so I can make these grilled cheese sandwiches! But, don’t worry it you don’t have all the kinds of fresh herbs because these are very tasty with one or two, whatever you may have or grow yourself. Pretty well any herb would be good, except mint.
Of course, you know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich and I don’t mean to sound patronizing by telling you how, however, the method of making these is a bit different than what you normally do. This way works well whenever you want to put something more than only cheese in a grilled cheese, such as sliced tomatoes, sliced olives, or fresh herbs.
↑ From the top left : Thyme, Rosemary, Tarragon, Flat Leaf Parsley, Chives, Oregano, Basil ↑
1 : Butter one side of each of your slices of bread. It’s much easier to get an even layer of butter if your butter is at room temperature. If it’s coming straight from the fridge, soften it with a brief moment in the microwave oven, OR melt about 1 teaspoon per side of bread in your pan. Then soak it up with one side of each piece of bread and remove to cool. Note : in the ingredients picture above, that is more butter than you need for one sandwich.
2 : Place half your bread slices, buttered side down in a room-temperature frying pan, that has a lid. Put your finely chopped mixed fresh herbs on the bread.
3 : Place the sliced cheese on top of the herbs. The reason you want the cheese on top of the herbs is so that it will melt and therefore stick the herbs to the bread. Otherwise, this sandwich is impossible to flip.
4 : Put your second slice of bread on, buttered side up. Cover your frying plan and place on the (cold) stove. Turn the burner on to very low. This means that these sandwiches will take more time to cook, but the room-temperature pan and low heat will allow the cheese to melt nicely, sticking the sandwich together, without causing the toast to burn.
↑ Hi! ↑
5 : Leave it be, until the cheese is melted. I let mine cook slowly for about 7 minutes. You can lift the lid and check to make sure that it’s not getting too dark and if it is, you’ll have no choice but to flip it or it will burn, so if the cheese hasn’t ‘glued’ the herbs to the bread yet, press down with a spatula before flipping (but only press it if you’re in a ‘must flip now’ situation).
6 : Once the cheese is melted and the bread nicely toasted, flip the sandwich, and put the cover back on. Turn the stove burner completely off (there will be enough heat in the pan to toast the second side.) Cook until done, about 1 or 2 more minutes.
I like mine with a daub of hot sauce. My fave is a product made in the West Indies called ‘Matouk’s’. They make several different sauces; the one I mean is called ‘hot sauce / salsa picante’. This is pretty spicy so be forewarned. Nick doesn’t go near the stuff! I wouldn’t expect you to order it from Amazon, where I see it is very expensive, but here’s the link, so you can see what the bottle looks like. We get ours at an International Market (you can see a picture of Nick picking it off the shelf in this post, which is one of the very first posts I ever did, so have mercy lol) but also recently noticed that it was now being stocked at the regular grocery store.
Thanks for taking a look. Have I caused you to crave a grilled cheese sandwich now? Ok then, my job here is done.
xo loulou
