Grilled Cheese With Jalapeño, Tomato and Fried Egg

By Sam Sifton

Grilled Cheese With Jalapeño, Tomato and Fried Egg
David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Prop Stylist: Paige Hicks.
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4(212)
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This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen.

Sometimes I get it into my head to make a fancy grilled cheese sandwich. I don’t have a recipe because you don’t really need a recipe to make grilled cheese sandwiches. You just need desire, and a triangle in your head: salt; crunch; melting ooze. So I’ll slice some mild Cheddar. Get some decent bread, a sliced jalapeño, the tail end of a beefsteak tomato. Then, sizzle-sizzle-flip-flip in some unsalted butter, and top with a sunny-side-up egg. It’s the simplest kind of cooking, and on a weeknight that’s exactly what most of us need. Make grilled cheese!

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Comments

Pam Smith

OMG! I was just going to write this recipe this way; then read yours! My mom used to make them this way (I’m going back to the 60’s, here) and called them toasted cheese! She put slices of bread, no butter, on aluminum foil in the broiler and put a slice of cheese and a slice of tomato on top of each; broiled until the tomato melted into the cheese and the cheese melted into the bread (a few minutes) and ‘presto! Enough sandwiches for the family! I think we ate them open-faced.

Walter

My family never used butter. Cut the fat and taste the cheese and jalapenos: lay an even number of bread slices in broiler, topped with a few slices of cheese and the additions. Broil till melted and maybe a touch bubbly and burnt, checking often. Then flip slices together and broil till top is toasted, then flip and toast bottoms. Crisp, easy, can be done for four or more sandwiches at once, and no butter. NB: I love butter, but prefer to enjoy it in essentials, like hollandaise

Walter

BTW, adding an egg, a la a Croque Monsieur, is a brilliant idea.

John

If you replace the jalapeno with a bit of the "sauce" part of a can of Chipotles in Adobo sauce, you can spread it (thinly!) over the whole piece of bread to get more uniform spiciness that has a richer flavor profile than the jalapeno.

John

Pam, OMG! Your comment brought back a memory from over 65 years ago. My mother made the same toasted cheese and tomato but with CHEESE WHIZ! Thanks for the memories!!

lmcanty

I love a fancy grilled cheese, so I expected this to be good. But wow, this exceeded expectations. Ford Farm Coastal Cheddar and Kerrygold Dubliner Cheddar, tomato and sliced jalapeños in between layers of cheese on sourdough: a new favorite.

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