Give Your Grilled Cheese Sandwich The Supreme Pizza Treatment

A grilled cheese sandwich is one of the ultimate comfort foods — there's just something about the pairing of the crisp, buttery bread and the perfectly melted cheesy interior that's nearly impossible to resist. However, if you're looking for ways to upgrade your grilled cheese sandwich, it's time to turn your attention to another comfort food classic, a pizza piled high with toppings. Mashed recipe developer Kate Shungu has a supreme pizza grilled cheese recipe that melds two cheesy classics into a quick and delicious dish. "Pair it with a leafy green salad and a glass of wine for an easy weeknight meal that you can make in just 25 minutes," she advises.

For this grilled cheese sandwich, you start with two slices of thick cut Italian bread (you need a sturdy foundation for all the ingredients you're going to pile onto the sandwich) that are first buttered and then sprinkled with Parmesan cheese. "The butter and Parmesan combination creates a crispy, toasted cheese exterior with that characteristically salty and nutty flavor from the Parmesan," Shungu says. The Parmesan levels up the more neutral cheese that's the base of the sandwich. "The quintessential pizza cheese, mozzarella, holds it all together," she adds. This combination also allows you to make the most of each cheese, getting mozzarella's perfect meltability as well as Parmesan's flavor noes. And, that's before you even add in the other elements that comprise this pizza-inspired grilled cheese sandwich.

Your grilled cheese assembly starts almost as if you were creating an actual pizza on each slice of bread — the side with butter and Parmesan is placed on a griddle to toast, and the other side is topped with pizza sauce and mozzarella. Then, Shungu adds mild Italian ground sausage, yellow onion and green bell pepper cooked in the flavorful sausage drippings until softened, and pepperoni. However, you can customize this concept to whatever your preferred pizza toppings are. "It's also a genius way to use up extra toppings from pizza night," Mashed recipe developer Kate Shungu says. 

As one expert told us, the biggest mistake people make with grilled cheese is to crank the stovetop's heat too high, potentially unevenly browning or charring the bread before the cheese has even melted. So, you'll want to be patient, especially when making a sandwich loaded with fillings galore. You want to ensure the cheese has a chance to fully melt while the bready exterior gets perfectly crispy. And, while Shungu uses a griddle to make several sandwiches at once, you could easily create this recipe in a regular pan as well. Finally, when it comes time to serve your grilled cheese sandwich, a dipping sauce is yet another opportunity to add flavor. "Red sauce fans will love a small bowl of pizza sauce on the side for dipping," Shungu says. Or, swap that for pesto — whatever sauce you'd typically spread atop your pizza will work.