Skip Classic Grilled Cheese – Make It German-Style With Just 3 Extra Ingredients

Our German friends have some serious moxie when it comes to riffing on traditional foodie favorites. Consider, for instance, warm German-style potato salad, which is delicious enough to make you skip the standard American variety. While you probably already have a formula you love for a tried-and-true grilled cheese, allow us to suggest that you broaden your culinary horizons by adding a trio of delectable Deutsch ingredients. Doing so could transform your sammie into a flavor explosion. All you need are sauerkraut, German sausage, and grilled onions.

A "normal" grilled cheese is beloved on the basis of its nostalgic, comforting combination of gooey cheese and buttery bread, but the trifecta of German components ought to join the list of ingredients that will elevate grilled cheese sandwiches because it brings a little bit of everything to the handheld: fattiness, crisp sweetness, and tang. The key to elevating your sandwich and unlocking all the textures and flavors is to cook some of the ingredients before layering them onto your sandwich. Put cheese on each side of the bread so that it acts as a delicious glue to hold the sandwich together. While you're at it, make sure that your sausage is crisp, your onions are fresh, and your sauerkraut is warmed through. When you griddle the assemblage, you won't have to worry about burning your bread in an attempt to heat up a thick sandwich because your components will already be nice and toasty warm. Remember that German potato salad we just mentioned? It would be the perfect side dish for your thick, loaded grilled cheese (which is technically more of a melt at this point).

The perfect German grilled cheese sandwich starts with — surprise, surprise — the right cheese. Famed German Butterkäse translates to "butter cheese" because it is unctuous, melty, and unbelievably mellow, making it the perfect base cheese for your sandwich. Remember that shredded cheese is the secret to an ideal melt on sandwiches! Gouda is another selection with yummy taste and great consistency, but you honestly can't go wrong when it comes to cheese. Also, Swiss and Havarti are both great workhorses when it comes to grilled cheese with strong flavors; they're also both very accessible to most North American shoppers.

Your German grilled cheese is bound to be packed with flavor, but you can amp things up even more if you want to improve upon an already-great sando. Tart green apple slivers would be amazing paired with the flavor profile of your ingredients, for instance. The fruit would cut through the fattiness of the sausage and level the bright sourness of the sauerkraut. 

Talking about condiments, you can't discount the power of a nice Dijon or whole grain mustard to really zing on the palate when combined with the other players in the sammie. On the topic of whole grain, we must mention that a sandwich this bodacious needs a bread that can handle its hearty character, so wimpy Wonder bread is not the play. A thick, whole-grain loaf with character is what you want to contain your sandwich, or even a seeded rye. With a little consideration, your German grilled cheese will be outta this world.