5 Unexpectedly Great Cheeses for Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

"grilled cheese" by drburtoni is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Nostalgia has its place, but perhaps it’s time to get creative when it comes to grilled cheese sandwiches. You can still appreciate its easy comforts but with seriously upgraded ingredients, especially where the cheese is concerned. While most cheese will melt when heat is applied, there are some that have a certain gooey factor, combined with complex flavor, that takes a grilled cheese sandwich from great to legendary.

We’ve already brought you secrets for making great grilled cheese sandwiches, and now we take it a step further, with five unexpectedly great cheeses for your grilled cheese sandwiches, when your next cheese pull craving comes around.

Emmentaler

Emmentaler is a Swiss cheese with an appellation d’origine protégée (AOP) certification. This is the cheese you are thinking of when you think of the prototype for “Swiss” cheese, with its trademark holes or eyes. It is a frequent contributor to gratins and fondues, where it harmonizes with its slightly sweeter Swiss cousin, Gruyѐre, but it can dazzle all on its own. Its lower fat content among cheeses helps contribute to the signature stretchiness you desire when you pull apart those freshly grilled sandwich halves. Because it’s on the milder side, it can appeal to cheese novices, but its low vegetal tones also provide a nice foundation for other, full-flavor grilled cheese all-stars like caramelized onions, sharp mustard, or pumpernickel bread. A young Emmentaler will do fine for both meltiness and savory qualities, but seek out a cave-aged, Kaltbach Emmentaler selection if you want those tangy and savory notes dialed up.

Blue Cheese

Not all blues are created equal, but from mild to wild they can all contribute to a showstopper grilled cheese. The funky tones in blue cheese can be rounded out by sweet components such as fig jam, or raisin bread. Those same sharp notes can be amplified by salty partners such as bacon or prosciutto. If you love blue cheese for everything it brings to the table, why not have it all? Who’s mad at a grilled blue cheese sandwich with bacon and figs on raisin bread? Because the structure of blue cheese makes it an inconsistent melter, however, be sure to let it come to room temperature before spreading it evenly on your bread slices, and/or pair it with a mild-flavored cheese with excellent melting capabilities like mozzarella or Monterey jack. If you’re feeling cautious, start with a gentler blue such as Gorgonzola Dolce or Point Reyes Bay Blue to ease into a grilled blue cheese, a middleweight selection with a nice creaminess and medium spicy notes would be Rogue Creamery’s Oregon Blue, and if you’re walking on the wild side, go Roquefort or go home.

Camembert

There are cheeses that are melty and gooey, and then there are cheeses that are downright oozy. You might very well need a fork and a knife to go after a Camembert-based grilled cheese sandwich, but is that any reason not to have one? If you’ve ever enjoyed a wheel of Camembert right out of the oven spread on baguette slices, you can already appreciate what a little heat does to this Normandy stunner. High moisture cheeses such as mozzarella, Brie, and Camembert have a much lower melting point than harder or older cheeses, contributing to their desirably droopy character. Double down on Camembert’s fungal notes with sautéed mushrooms, or bring some tartness into play to soften its richness, like a cranberry compote or balsamic vinegar. While classic Camembert—Camembert de Normandie—isn’t technically available in the United States because of its unpasteurized nature, Camembert de Châtelain is a respectable cousin and widely accessible. Or look for domestic selections that perform like Camembert: Jasper Hill Farm’s Moses Sleeper, Alemar Cheese’s Bent River, or Sweet Grass Dairy’s Green Hill.

Limburger

My favorite description of Limburger is that it’s a cheese that can curl your toes, but its bark is worse than its bite...mostly. It is a smear-ripened cheese with origins in Belgium, but that’s become more associated in the United States with the German immigrants that brought the style here, primarily to the Midwest. If you made a Venn diagram of every term used to describe strong cheeses—whiffy, gory, notorious, animal—in the absolute center would be Limburger. For those who haven’t yet fled for the next paragraph, a popular sandwich made with Limburger includes raw onions on rye bread. I can’t see any reason not to grill this thing, allowing Limburger’s creaminess to shine, and grab a crisp lager with which to take the edge off (and uncurl your toes). The only remaining producer of Limburger stateside is Wisconsin’s Chalet Cheese Cooperative, but Austria’s Bachensteiner from Dorfsennerei Sibratsgfäll is another strong alternative.

Mystery Mix

Mystery by PublicDomainPictures on Pixabay.jpg

A grilled cheese sandwiche is the perfect solution for when you have a bunch of cheese ends that would make for a sad cheese plate, but that you cannot bear to lay to rest. Even those that have remained hidden in the nether regions of your fridge probably have a few good cubic centimeters left in them. Take whatever you have, shred, and give the mystery mix the grilled cheese treatment. All the better if you have a variety of soft and hard cheese, mild and strong flavors. You’ll get a different outcome every time, and there’s no better way to keep your grilled cheese relationship in the honeymoon phase for all time.