The Simple Grilled Cheese Mistake You Want To Avoid For Ideal Meltiness
There are few things in life more disappointing than taking a bite of cheese that you expect to be a silky, gooey, warm, and stringy burst of deliciousness except, it's cold, half-melted, and lumpy. It can bring your appetite from 100 down to zero pretty darn quickly. Warming cheese for optimum meltiness, however, is easier said than done and requires some nuance.
Whether it's a crisp grilled cheese that requires a gooey puddle in the middle or a fondue that needs a more liquidy texture, there are a few key rules to bear in mind when you're trying to melt cheese. The first one? Not all cheese is meant for melting. Unlike with oil where moisture is your greatest enemy, moisture is what you should be looking for in cheese that's going to be melted. Soft and creamy cheese with high levels of moisture will melt much better than drier ones.
The higher the fat, the easier it will be to melt and cheese like feta and halloumi which are made by curdling milk with acid won't melt no matter how hard you try. Additionally, even if a cheese melts, how it is made will affect its texture when it does. Mozzarella, for example, is made by stretching curds in hot water and becomes stringy when melted rather than turning into a smooth and even liquid. So, if you're toasting a grilled cheese to dunk into a bowl of thick tomato soup, it's best to know your brie and mozzarella from halloumi and parmesan.
Pick the right cheese and slice it well
Grilled cheese is a comfort food which means, you want to throw it together with whatever you have in your refrigerator without fussing too much over it. For those who want to take their grilled cheese game to the next level, however, it's important to choose the right type of cheese and to pay attention to slicing it thinly because once you do, nothing less will cut it.
Heidi Gibson, author of "Grilled Cheese Kitchen," tells HuffPost that medium cheddar is the one that gives grilled cheese that signature stringy texture when you pull it apart. Gouda, gruyere, and Emmental go famously well in grilled cheese sandwiches whereas Monterey or Sonoma Jack is great for mixing with other non-gooey but delicious cheeses like parmesan and blue cheese. Even celebs have their own preference for the cheese they use inside a grilled cheese sandwich. Kylie Jenner makes her classic grilled cheese with American cheese, Joanna Gaines uses Havarti for a thick and saucy melt, and Antoni Porowski prefers shredded Gruyere (via Insider).
Now that you've mulled over the type of cheese to use, another mistake to avoid is slicing the cheese too thick. Thick slices may leave firm spots of cheese in your sandwich so it's important to make sure that you're using nice and thin slices between the bread. Alternatively, you could even use grated cheese as not only will that give a more even melt, but grated cheese also melts much quicker.