The Cooling Rack Hack To Prevent Soggy Grilled Cheese

A hot, gooey grilled cheese is the perfect lunch on a rainy afternoon. The combination of crispy bread and melty cheese is a classic childhood delight that's hard to mess up. And yet, there are mistakes you can make with grilled cheese, and a big one is letting it get soggy. Fortunately, there's an easy hack to prevent your grilled cheese from turning into a limp mess.

The reason grilled cheese gets soggy is lack of airflow. When you put the hot sandwich on a plate immediately after it's done cooking, steam escapes and forms condensation on the underside, which soaks into the bread and leads to a soggy sandwich. This applies to any kind of hot sandwich, whether it's a grilled cheese or Florida's own Cuban sandwich. So, what do you do instead?

To keep your grilled cheese crispy and delicious, simply let it cool for a couple of minutes where air is able to circulate underneath, like a wire rack. Once it cools down, you'll have a crispy sandwich with cheese that's the perfect consistency for eating.

Most any surface that permits air to flow beneath your grilled cheese while it cools will work for this hack. For starters, if you're cooking the grilled cheese using an air fryer, leave it in the tray with the air fryer open for a few minutes. Given you're using a rack with holes or slots in the bottom, it will provide the airflow your sandwich needs to crisp up properly.

Alternatively, you can create your own rack. Simply lay a pair of forks or chopsticks parallel across your plate and use them to support your sandwich while it cools. Either one will allow air to flow under the sandwich and let steam release properly, leaving you with a crispy sandwich. For an even crispier grilled cheese, swap the butter for refined coconut oil, which has less fat and a higher smoke point than butter, allowing for the cheese to melt and the bread to get crispy without burning.