The Unusual Cooking Method Alton Brown Uses For The 'Perfect' Grilled Cheese

We're starting to think that, just like us, celebrity chef Alton Brown might just be a bonafide grilled cheese fiend. Not too long ago, we covered how to cook grilled cheese on the actual grill for the best flavor and crunch, a hack attributed to Brown. Now, we've unearthed another Alton Brown-approved technique for gooey, toasty grilled cheese. While grilling grilled cheese involves, well, a grill, this alternative method from Brown only demands two nestable cast iron pans in addition to your normal grilled cheese fixings.

In a clip from his classic show, "Good Eats," which features Brown cooking in a homey suburban kitchen straight from a '90s family sitcom, he heats up the two skillets on high heat over his stove's burners while he readies his uncooked grilled cheese sandwich (more on that in a bit). One slice of bread is spritzed with a sheen of olive oil to prevent sticking. Once the pans are ripping hot, he places his sandwich in the larger one and, in turn, sprays the other side of the sandwich with a nonstick layer of oil. 

Then, he takes the heavy bottom of the smaller hot pan and places it inside the first pan, pressing down with his (oven-mitted!) hand. The heat from the skillets cooks the grilled cheese in just a few minutes. Brown himself has stated that, as long as you aren't stingy with the cheese, you'll know the sando is done when you hear the sizzle of cheese dripping into the skillet as it melts. Presto: you have a griddled sandwich ready to dip in applesauce — an underrated tip, in our professional opinion.

While the unorthodox, sandwich press-free method behind cooking Alton Brown's skillet grilled cheese is the star, the little tweaks he makes to his sandwich really elevate it. This is clearly an endeavor for the connoisseur making themselves a solo snacky treat, as the skillet method is admittedly inefficient at batch-cooking grilled cheese for a crowd. For a single, tear-inducingly magnificent sandwich, however, you can (and should) pull out all the stops to make it sing.

Brown eschews most of the "best" breads for grilled cheese and opts for country bread, a robust choice that can stand up to the pressure of the nested skillets. The cheese element is open to riffing, but he likes to mix soft and hard cheeses for flavor and textural effect. In the "Good Eats" video, he uses sharp cheddar. The cheese must be freshly shredded, he insists, as you just don't get the same meltiness with slices. The only adornments he chooses to gild the lily of this perfect handheld are Dijon mustard and an abundance of cracked black pepper.

There's no reason you can't put your own spin on grilled cheese using Brown's method, although we have to wonder if you overstuff the sandwich with toppings, you might not achieve the same thorough gooeyness the skillets give you with a more slender specimen. For us, some high-quality Swiss and a nice white American (for its superior meltability) with nothing but mustard, pepper, and a thick slice of ripe tomato sounds just about right!