Gourmet Grilled Cheese with Ham and Green Apple
To honour National Grilled Cheese Day on April 12th, I’m sharing our favourite grilled cheese recipe with you. Marble cheese, sliced ham and tart green apple slices take grilled cheese to a whole new level.
My boys have eaten hundreds of grilled cheese over the years, but gone are the days when their ideal grilled cheese consisted of a cheese single between two pieces of white bread.
This is what weekends look like at our house; a handful of kids and a full day of hockey in the driveway. They play for hours, stopping only for an occasional breather and our weekly grilled cheese lunch on the porch.
Grilled Cheese. Where would we be without it?
It’s the comfort food of childhood, the perfect weekend lunch, the quick Tuesday dinner squeezed in between homework and hockey practice.
Our favourite grilled cheese is a winning combination of ham, marble cheese, and slivers of tart green apple, layered between two slices of hearty whole grain bread.
It’s a breeze to make, it’s nutritious, and it takes the grilled cheese you’ve always known and loved to a whole new level.
Ingredients:
- whole grain bread
- butter
- marble cheese
- sliced ham
- sliced green apple (watch for the nifty apple trick in a sec.)
- optional: mayo, honey-mustard, dijon etc.
To Make your grilled cheese:
- Heat a frying pan over medium-high heat while you’re prepping your sandwich.
- Spread a generous layer of butter on each slice of bread, and turn the bread over.
- If you’re adding mayo or mustard, give the unbuttered side of the bread a swipe now.
- Next, place a slab of marble cheese on each slice of bread. For a super-cheesy sandwich, go ahead and double up your cheese.
- Layer several slices of ham over the cheese.
- To finish, top the ham with overlapping apple slices.
Now, back to the nifty apple trick I mentioned:
Do your kids know there’s a star hiding inside every apple? There is! You just have to cut your apple a certain way to see it.
Call the kids over, and try it now. Cut your apple in half, crosswise (not top-to-bottom), and ask one of your kids pull the two halves apart.
How cool is that?
To grill your sandwich:
- Transfer your sandwich to the hot pan and turn the heat down to medium. Grill for 3-4 minutes until the cheese begins to melt and the bread develops a crisp, golden-brown crust.
- Now, flip it over and grill for 2-3 minutes more.
- When this side is good and brown, remove your sandwich from the heat.
Mmmmm-mmm!
Grilled cheese perfection.
Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
