14 best grilled cheese sandwiches ever

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My first cookbook, Deep Run Roots, is a love letter to Eastern North Carolina, the place I’ve lived my whole life.

But it really doesn’t represent the way I cook at home most days. At home and at my home-away-from-home office (a place we affectionately call VHQ), I’m a modern day domestic engineer who calls on a roster of flavor heroes to make simple food fantastic food. These things, my kitchen MVPs, are what this book is about.

If you come on this journey with me, if you go to the mat and make a hero or two, and then make a recipe or three that builds on that hero, I promise with every ounce of my highly accomplished self that you will be inspired.

This book will change the way you cook, the way you think about what’s in your fridge, the way you see yourself in an apron. I swear on my dog Gracie’s grave that you will be empowered, confident, dare I say even nimble, in your kitchen. Your journey to make your cooking taste good will shatter the chains of recipes you’ve struggled to follow. It will reshape, even streamline, the time you spend feeding yourself and the ones you love.

Roast Chicken Toast

To all the toast I’ve cooked before—I’m sorry you don’t hold a candle to this guy. Basically a piece of bread transformed into a crouton under roasting chicken legs, the bread itself is squishy and rich with chicken schmaltz in some spots and astonishingly crisp for the same reason in others. It’s stupid easy to do, makes use of not-fresh bread, and is a revelation to eat. I seriously can’t understand why we haven’t been doing it for centuries. So while I’m probably not the first person to roast chicken over bread, I want to be the one who takes the technique mainstream.

Cherry Tomato Baked Feta…Surprise!

I’ve taken to the habit of calling something a “Surprise” when I don’t know how to classify it. But if you think about the Mediterranean tradition of dipping bread into seasoned olive oil, then you add cherry tomatoes and feta and then you bake it, you have the gist of what’s happening here. Not technically a dip, but perhaps more of a broken spoon-able sauce or spread, LGD stands in for the “seasoned” part of the olive oil and brings more pizzazz with it than dried oregano ever did. Surprise! While the gateway vehicle for this dip is toast, I love it over grits, pureed cauliflower, couscous, fish, or chicken. I’ve paired it with swordfish here because swordfish is meaty enough to balance the action—but let’s be clear, this recipe is about the Surprise, not its companion.

Collards Break Character

I stumble around the question of how I find inspiration for new dishes because generally the process is more research than revelation. But when my friend Von Diaz made her collards braised in coconut milk on an episode of my show Somewhere South, I was blown away by the idea of collards braised in anything other than porky pot liquor. Von’s collards landed in my bowl dark green, earthy, and a little bit bitter against a white backdrop of mellow, comforting coconut milk. They were familiar but different and I was totally inspired.

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Two-Minute Mile-High English Muffin in a Mug

A few basic ingredients and a couple of minutes are all you need to whip up a low-sugar English muffin that’s the perfect vehicle for just about any kind of topping, such as salad, meat, eggs, cheese, or veggies. Or, for an elegant yet-filling weekend treat, try filling it with lox, cream cheese, dill, and red onion. You won’t even miss the bagel!

Yield: 1 serving

1. Grease a microwave-safe cup with softened butter. (The higher and narrower the cup, the better the muffin will rise).

2. Combine the almond flour, psyllium husk powder, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl, taking care to break up any lumps. Add the egg and mix well with a spoon. Add the carbonated water and mix well again. Spoon the batter into the greased cup, then microwave on high for 2 minutes. (Check the muffin after 1 minute and adjust the total cooking time according to your microwave oven).

3. Remove the muffin from the cup, let cool slightly, slice, and enjoy warm with your favorite toppings, or toast it, if you like.

Nutrition Info

In Total: 15.0 g protein; 22.3 g fat; 2.5 g net carbs; 270 kcal.

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Gas Station Charcuterie Plate

Ham and Cheese Sandwich

Mini Ice Cream Sandwiches

Snacks are great for bribery, silencing children, buying temporary friends, and for eating on the go.

The Gas Station Charcuterie Plate is possible because we live in the golden age of mobile snacking.

Occasionally in life, you might find that a sandwich has patches of blank bread. This sandwich is one that was made by a bad person. You, however, are not.

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Baked Vegetable Soup from EatingWell Soups

Originally prepared in the wood-burning hearths of Italian homes, this peasant-style healthy vegetable soup recipe is simple to make in a modern oven. Brimming with artichokes, mushrooms, zucchini and leeks, this easy soup heats up the house as it becomes the perfect warming meal.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

2. Pour oil into a 6-quart ovenproof pot and arrange potato slices in an even layer over the oil. Sprinkle with 3/4 teaspoon salt. Layer in zucchini, leeks, celery, mushrooms, artichoke hearts and 1/4

cup parsley; sprinkle with the remaining salt. Pour tomatoes over the vegetables and nestle Parmesan rind into them. Add water, cover and bring to a boil over high heat.

3. Once boiling, transfer the pot to the oven and

bake, covered, until the vegetables are tender, but

still firm, 1 to 11/4 hours. Season with pepper and serve

garnished with parsley and Parmesan, if desired.

Tip

To clean leeks, swish slices in a bowl of water. Remove leeks with a slotted spoon, leaving sand or soil behind. Drain and repeat if needed.

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Chicken Parm Panini

Imagine my delight once I discovered that leftover pasta, with the flavorful sauce it’s absorbed, is great in sandwiches. The next time you’ve got extra spaghetti in your fridge, go ahead and create a sandwich version of your favorite pasta dish. For this update on a chicken parm sandwich, I bread and saute thin chicken breast cutlets and layer them with fresh basil, mozzarella cheese, and leftover spaghetti on garlic-buttered ciabatta. It’s the classic dish in handheld form!

Chicken Caesar Panini

Extra-flavorful grilled chicken breast, melty Asiago cheese, crisp romaine lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, and Caesar dressing on a toasty, crouton like baguette—it’s chicken Caesar salad’s sandwich cousin. I nearly overdid chicken Caesar salad in my corporate days back in my twenties. There was a cafe across the street from my office building in San Francisco that made an excellent version, so I’d order it two or three times a week. These panini bring back some fond—if a little excessive—food memories for me.

Red, White, and Blue Cheese Panini

Roasted turkey, bacon, avocado, sweet roasted Roma tomatoes, just a sprinkling of Gorgonzola cheese, and romaine lettuce on their airy, house-baked rosemary olive-oil bread—Con Pane has created an absolute masterpiece with this one. For my grilled version, I wait until the sandwich comes off the grill to add the romaine. That way I can have the toasted bread and soft Gorgonzola while still keeping the greens fresh and crisp.

Turkey Jalapeño Melt Panini

A bright spot in many otherwise nondescript office parks is the hidden deli. It’s the little hole-in-the-wall place no one else knows about unless they work in the building. Quite frankly, it’s often not really a place an outsider would seek out. You find the usual sandwiches, sodas, coffee, and maybe a jar of day-old cookies. But it’s incredibly convenient and offers an easy break from the office grind upstairs. These panini were inspired by my husband’s favorite sandwich from the hidden deli near his office.

No-Fuss, No-Flip Chicken Quesadillas

I’ll tell you one thing that really impresses me: when chefs can easily and expertly flip food in a skillet with just a quick flick of the wrist. I watch in complete awe—this is not a skill I currently possess. I can usually flip pancakes if the batter is thick enough, but a quesadilla full of shredded cheese and other loose toppings? Forget it. Enter the panini press, with its ability to cook from both the top and bottom at the same time. It’s by far the easiest way that I know of to cook quesadillas and other dishes that you’d otherwise have to flip.

Chicken Teriyaki

I knew from the outset that chicken teriyaki would be well suited for a minimal effort–high reward meal on the panini press. Boneless chicken cooks incredibly quickly on the grill, and you can set it in its sweet and salty marinade ahead of time. All I needed was to research the right ingredients to make an authentically Japanese version of this familiar favorite. I found such an approach on Marc Matsumoto’s popular food blog, NoRecipes.com. Here, I’ve adapted Marc’s beautifully simple recipe for grilling on the panini press.

Cheeseburger Patty Melt Panini

I might go so far as to say that a patty melt is even better than a regular burger. Grilled on rye bread and enveloped in cheese, a patty melt tends to hold its ingredients intact better than its burger counterpart. Condiments like grilled onions and Thousand Island dressing are an insurance policy, so that on the off chance you overcook the patty, you’ll still end up with a flavorful sandwich. And then there’s the rye bread—bread that actually tastes like something—cradling your burger patty. Yup, give me a good patty melt over a regular burger any day.

Greek Shrimp Panini with Pesto, Feta, and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

The trouble with making sandwiches with shrimp is that the little guys have a tendency to slip and slide around a bit. I’ve played around with a lot of different shrimp panini concepts and I finally figured out the key to making them work: a wide berth of bread. Give shrimp a little wiggle room—either on a dense sliced bread or a wider ciabatta—and they play nicely with your other ingredients. Which is a very good thing, because these flavorful panini deserve to be grilled as often as possible.

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Essential VBQ sides and condiments

From grilled potato salad, to cashew sour cream, to savory sauces this cookbook offers an array of recipes that will allow you to host the ultimate VBQ.

BBQ staples with a Vegan Twist

You don’t need meat to enjoy a warm, smoky, succulent cookout. With plenty of creative tofu-and-vegetable-based recipes, this book guides you through recreating everyone’s favorite BBQ dishes.

Easy-to-Grill

With accessible ingredients, and practical yet innovative recipes, VBQ – The Ultimate Cookbook will transform anyone into a vegan pitmaster in no time.

Draw everyone to your cookout with this irresitible Peppered Tofu Steak recipe!

Instructions

1. For the marinade, mince the garlic and mix with the remaining ingredients, except the tofu, until smooth.

2. Cut the tofu into slices 2 cm thick, add them to the marinade and leave for 4 hours in the refrigerator.

3. Oil the grill and sear the tofu steaks over direct heat for 3 to 4 minutes each side, then finish cooking them over indirect heat with the lid closed for another 3 minutes each side. Baste often with the leftover marinade.

Ingredients

• 2 garlic cloves
• ¼ cup (60 ml) olive oil
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon agave nectar
• 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

• 1 teaspoon freshly ground pink pepper
• 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary
• 14 ounces (400 g) frozen and thawed tofu