The Creamy Ingredient That Makes PB&J Sandwiches 10x More Delicious

When you want to upgrade your peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you don't have to splurge on high-priced bread or get particular about the jam like Ina Garten. How you prepare it can make all the difference, and treating it like a grilled cheese with a bit of butter on the outside can give you a serious result with even more serious flavor.

Toasting the exterior of your sandwich with butter in a pan gives you a golden-brown outside packed with richness and flavor. It brings out the best in your bread and warms the peanut butter and jelly for something as gooey as melted cheese but infinitely creamier. This is especially true if you use a top-ranked store-bought butter brand, since even a small amount acts like a seasoning and truly upgrades the whole thing. The toasted bread and melted insides create a dichotomy of textures that transforms one of the simplest recipes in the world into something more decadent and complex.

While the heat won't caramelize the sugars in the jelly or toast the peanut butter fats, it does make them taste more delicious. Smell is just as important as taste when enjoying a meal, and heat releases those aromas so you can enjoy them more. This is especially nice if you work with higher-end, complex ingredients like artisan jellies, as it lets you better experience each little nuance.

A new preparation method means new opportunities for better flavor. While simple toasting alone is enough to make any mixture of ingredients delicious, taking inspiration from other recipes and choosing the right type of bread maximizes that effect.

While you should avoid crusty bread for a PB&J because it tends to be a bit dry, this trick is a great way of getting around that. Even older bread gets a texture boost, transforming it from stale and brittle to crispy and delicious. If you're focusing on the rich, buttery flavor, using something full of dips and ridges, like sourdough or a rustic country-style loaf, only lets you use more butter for a thoroughly flavored exterior. Just be sure not to use something with deep holes that your filling can leak through, as it may burn in the pan and foul the flavor.

If you want to take things even further, you can make the most decadent PB&J French toast with this method. It's especially great if you dip a soft, fluffy white bread or brioche in the egg mixture, giving you something that's pillowy on the inside and crispy on the outside. Butter alone can toast the bread, but the addition of milk and eggs adds binding proteins and delicious fats that create a stronger, but still crispy, structure that holds its shape well and prevents the liquidy insides from oversaturating the bread.