Add A Parmesan Cheese Crust To Your Sandwich With A Simple Oven Technique

Toasting your bread first gives you the crispiest grilled cheese ever, but it can also limit your flavor options. You don't want a bunch of seasoning getting stuck in your toaster, and buttering it after softens the crumb, so it's not quite as crunchy. However, if you add a parmesan crust in the pan instead, you get a similar result with way more flavor.

This trick may take a little bit more time, but the intense flavor makes it worth it. By grating parmesan and sprinkling it over buttered bread, you create a dynamite dairy combo full of all the fat you need for a golden brown result. The real key is using medium-high heat, which is just enough to melt the parmesan to crispy perfection but low enough that the heat has time to penetrate the bread, so you don't have a crisp shell with a flimsy center. The only downside is that you need to toast the bread open-faced, meaning your cheese won't have enough time to melt. That's where your oven comes in.

A raging hot broiler is your best bet because all you want is to melt the cheese covering the untoasted side of your bread. If the heat is too low, your un-melted cheese will need more time under the heat, which warms up the pan and burns your parmesan crust. This method has the added benefit of browning the cheese inside your sandwich, giving you double the toasty flavor. Hit it hot and fast, and you'll have the crispiest, meltiest grilled cheese ever. Of course, this isn't limited to just grilled cheese — you could enjoy a ham and cheese or a turkey club with a crispy parmesan crust, too. Just be sure you hold off on adding any crunchy or fresh veg (like lettuce and tomato) until after it's cooked.

One of the worst mistakes you can make with grilled cheese is picking the wrong combination of bread and cheese. While most combinations still deliver decent flavor, this trick is a bit more delicate and requires bread that can stand up to a bit of extra heat and correctly grated parmesan, or you risk creating a big, burnt crouton rather than a toasted, melty lunch.

Most of the time, you want a relatively thin and soft bread for any toasted sandwich, so heat from the pan can penetrate the bread and melt any dairy you add. However, since your cheese will have direct exposure to heat, you'll instead want something a little thicker and chewier than you may be used to. If you can find sourdough without too many holes, it's an excellent choice because its interior stays pillowy even under the broiler. Still, most rustic country and Italian loaves are solid choices, and even some thick-cut brioche can add a bit of sweetness (provided it's really cut thick enough).

There are many tips for making a grilled cheese, but the most important is making sure butter goes all the way to the edges of the bread, and that goes double for this trick. Even though you need to grate the parmesan quite finely, you don't want to use the jars of powdered cheese, as they're more likely to burn than caramelize. By keeping the grating fine, you keep a consistent result that can stick to all that butter and create a total covering of crispy, cheesy goodness.