Video:Make the Perfect Grilled Cheese Sandwich

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Transcript:Make the Perfect Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Hi, I am Ben Kurtzman for About.com Food, and today I am going to show you the secret for making a perfect grilled cheese sandwich. The key to making a grilled cheese sandwich golden brown is to butter the bread instead of greasing the pan.

Preparing the Sandwich Bread

One area where you can be a little more creative is selecting the bread itself. I like to go to the bakery and get a multigrain bread or a nice rye, but regardless of what bread you pick, you want something that is a little more dense. You do not want a bread with a lot of holes in it because when you go to cook it the cheese will simply seep through, and you will end up with a mess.

Assemble the Sandwich

As you can see here, I am using a liberal amount of butter, so for you calorie counters out there, you might want to sacrifice a little bit of the goldenness and use less butter. Now I am going to flip the bread over. Butter side down, so that we can add cheese. When I make a grilled cheese sandwich I like the classic cheddar cheese. It has a distinctive flavor that is not too strong, and it also melts really nicely. One of the keys is to cut the cheese very thinly, so that it melts evenly. So if you have a normal cheese slicer like the one I am using here, you can go about three slices deep.

Additional Ingredients

Once the bread is buttered and the cheese is sliced, you have another opportunity to be creative. Adding something to your grilled cheese sandwich can make it distinctively yours. I am going to add spicy mustard to give my grilled cheese an extra zing, but you can feel free to add tomatoes, basil, ham or really any other ingredient that will make the grilled cheese sandwich good for you.

And now, we will close it up and it is ready to cook.

Cook the Grilled Cheese Sandwich

I am going to begin by turning the heat up to medium, then I am going to quickly add our sandwich. Put it over medium heat in the pan, and we are going to cover it because if we do not the bread will cook before the cheese melts.

So when you are making a grilled cheese sandwich, the rule of thumb is that each side cooks for five minutes. So five minutes, then flip it over, and five minutes on the other side. So now, flip it over. Beautifully golden brown. Cover it again, and another five minutes on the other side. So, you can see, we have crispy golden brown bread and creamy melted cheese coming together in one sandwich. To me, that is a perfect grilled cheese.

Thanks for watching, and to learn more, visit us on the Web at food.about.com.