When I was growing up grilled cheese for dinner was a pretty common occurrence in our house. Now that I’m a mom, I can see why my mom was a fan. Easy, inexpensive, everyone likes them. No one complains.
My mom made them with Kraft Singles Cheese and one of the highlights of grilled cheese making was my sister and I opening the plastic wrap on those Singles and peeling the cheese off the plastic.
We tried to open the cheese without dinging or breaking the cheese corners. Sounds easy enough but when you’re a kid and in a hurry, broken corners can be unfortunate casualties.
I will never forget all the cheese my sister and I used to eat in a sport I’d call squares-of-cheese-folding. We’d fold multiple pieces of Singles into squares and see how high we could stack the squares and how much we could fit in our mouths. At one time. The things kids do. And they still do it.
Give kids a package of Singles and it doesn’t take long before cheese folding, stacking, tearing, and even cheese art happens.
You can use cookie cutters and cut out pretty cheese shapes, layering cut out pieces on top of other pieces. Think gingerbread house decorating but with cheese. Don’t ask me how I know this.
I also grew up in Minnesota, just one state away from Wisconsin where cheese eating is a statewide sport. And we won’t talk about the Minnesota State Fair and fried cheese curds and how I love those greasy little nuggets.
What better was to embrace my inner kid than to make mini grilled cheese sandwiches.
And let’s face it, anything that’s mini just tastes better.
| Mini Grilled Cheese and Tomato Sandwiches |
- 1 French baguette, sliced into 1/2-inch rounds
- Roma tomatoes, sliced into 1/4-inch rounds (each tomato will yield about 5-6 slices
- Kraft Singles Cheese, 1 slice per sandwich, cut or folded into sixths
- Butter, about 1 tablespoon per sandwich
- Prepare a large non-stick skillet by spraying it with cooking spray. Butter one side of bread and lay it buttered-side-down into the pan. Top with the cheese squares by staggering them slightly when placing them onto the bread rather than stacking all the squares exactly on top of each other (this will create height to the finished sandwich). Top with one tomato slice. Butter another piece of bread and place it on top of the tomato slice, buttered-side-up. Repeat for as many sandwiches and you wish to make.
- When all your sandwiches are in the pan, turn the stove to medium or medium-high heat and cook sandwiches for about 3 minutes on the first side. Flip and cook for another 2-3 minutes on second side, or cook until both sides are browned to desired level. Serve immediately.
- Consider serving with ketchup, ketchup + hot sauce, salsa, three cheese ranch salad dressing (shown in photos), mustard, mayo, or any desired dip.
Tip: To encourage cheese melting, use a pan with a lid as the trapped heat and steam will help encourage the cheese to melt. Otherwise you run the risk of the bread browning too fast before the cheese has melted.
More Photos…
