Dinner can be anything you want it to be. Today, I want it to be a delicious sandwich, like this Caprese Grilled Cheese.
Somedays I don’t want to fuss too much over dinner. But I also don’t want anything boring. A decadent but simple sandwich like this Caprese Grilled Cheese is just the thing.
What Is Caprese?
Caprese most often refers to a salad composed of tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese, and basil. (Get our Caprese Salad recipe at our sister site, TheCookful.) But you can take those delicious flavors and translate them into other dishes like pasta salad or even, grilled cheese. Fun fact: it’s said the salad was created to celebrate the colors of the Italian flag – red, white, and green!
How To Make Caprese Grilled Cheese
To make this sandwich, first get out your bread. Whatever kind of bread you like for a grilled cheese works here. However, to stay with the Italian theme, getting a loaf of Italian bread makes great sense.
Butter each slice of bread on one side. Then flip them over and brush the other sides with olive oil. Put the bread, butter-side-down, in a pan heating over low or medium-low (you want the bread to brown as the cheese melts so monitor the underside and adjust the temperature accordingly). Top each slice of bread with a mozzarella cheese slice.
Tent loosely with foil and cook, checking the undersides of the bread occasionally, until cheese is melted, 3-5 minutes. Top half of the bread slices with 2-3 slices of tomato. Sprinkle them with some salt and black pepper and then top with fresh basil leaves.
Invert the cheese-only slices onto the slices that have cheese, basil, and tomatoes. Transfer to a cutting board and slice in half. Dig in!
Christine :)
Caprese Grilled Cheese Sandwich
- Prep Time: 2 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 7 minutes
- Yield: 2 servings 1x
- Category: Entrée
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
DESCRIPTION
Dinner can be anything you want it to be. Today, I want it to be a delicious sandwich, like this Caprese Grilled Cheese.
Ingredients
- 4 slices Italian bread
- 4 tsp. unsalted butter, softened (or you can use mayonnaise if your butter is cold and hard)
- 4 tsp. olive oil
- 4 deli-cut slices mozzarella cheese
- 1 large tomato, sliced into 6 slices
- Salt
- Black pepper
- 4 large basil leaves
Instructions
- Preheat a skillet or large frying pan over medium-low heat. Get out the bread. Butter one side of each slice with 1 teaspoon of butter each. Flip the bread over and brush each slice with 1 teaspoon of olive oil.
- Put the slices in the pan, butter-side-down. Top each slice with a slice of mozzarella. Tent loosely with foil and cook until bread is brown underneath and cheese is melted, 3-5 minutes (note that you should monitor the underside of the bread and if it is browning to quickly, reduce the heat). Remove from heat.
- Top two of the breads with 3 slices of tomato each, overlapping them tomatoes so that they fill but don’t overflow from the bread. Sprinkle tomatoes with a good pinch of salt and of pepper. Top tomatoes with basil leaves.
- Invert tomato-less breads over the basil leaves and transfer to a cutting board. Cut in half.
This post originally appeared in April 2016 and was revised and republished in December 2020.
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