A Grilled Cheese Club Sandwich isn’t just a perfect dish for a fast, fun meal on a Friday, it’s also WAY scrumptious! Oh and if you do it right, you can clog all of your arteries in just one bite.
So here’s how Tim and I came up with this recipe. Back about a week ago we were lounging on a sandy beach on the shore of Anderson Ranch lake. I was munching on a homemade sub, Tim had already gobbled his down and was eyeballing the other half of my sub, and we got to discussing a fast dinner dish that we could make the next night… because the next day was my BIRTHDAY – woot! Yeah, and I sure wasn’t going to spend time cooking on my birthday, and didn’t want Tim to spend much time either. Enter the lowly grilled cheese sammie…
Tim: “Why not just a plain old grilled cheese tomorrow night?”
Me: “Well yeah, I love grilled cheese, but what if we made it just a little more fancy?”
Tim: “You mean put BACON on it Toni?”
Me: “Ummm, sure, bacon is good, but wouldn’t bacon, onions, mushrooms and 3 different cheeses be better?”
Tim: “You had me at bacon, put anything else you want on it, so long as it’s got lots of bacon!”
So while I was splashing around in the lake that day, I visualized “The Birthday Sandwich”. I added Fire Roasted red peppers, some sun dried tomatoes and fresh baby spinach (I wanted a pop of color in there). Welp, I realized that just two pieces of bread wasn’t going to be enough to hold all of those ingredients, so then I started thinking about adding a third piece, ala club sandwich style.
Then I contemplated how to cook it so that all the cheese would get melty, the veggies would get hot AND the outside, toasted sides of the bread wouldn’t get SO toasted that they’d tear the skin off of the roof of my mouth.
Aha, the croque monsieur! But no croque-stuff on the inner piece of bread, I wanted that one buttered and grilled in the usual fashion, then layered onto the sandwich quickly so that its warmth would help melt the cheeses.
Once I knew I wanted to dip the outer pieces of bread in a milk/egg mixture, I knew that I’d need to use sourdough boule, and yay, I’d already made one the day before! Using a nice dense textured bread meant that the bread could stand up to the wet soak and not get all soggy.
Tim got to work the next afternoon and in less than 30 minutes we had A GRILLED CHEESE CLUB SANDWICH that was to DIE FOR!
Here’s how he did it… in pictures… on my counter top griddle that I love:
Yep, you observant readers will see that it’s my hand in the fourth picture. Tim had never dipped bread for french toast before, so he wanted a demo first.
What you can’t see is that as soon as he took the shrooms and onions off the griddle, he put two pieces of buttered bread on to grill on both sides. That was the middle piece of the club sammies.
While they were still grilling, he put the first piece of dipped bread onto the griddle and started assembling the bottom half of the sandwich, then added the middle toasted piece.
The 3 cheeses we chose to use were Provolone on the bottom so that it could add to the smoky flavors of the bacon, then good old American cheese on top of the mushroom layer – cuz a grilled cheese sandwich isn’t a grilled cheese sandwich unless there’s some American cheese in there – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it! The third cheese went onto the second half of the club. A nice spicy Pepperjack to lend a little heat to the veggies up there.
Look how gorgeous his sandwich is! I tell ya, the man has mad sandwich assembly skills people!
At this point the bottom piece of bread was starting to toast nicely and the provolone was getting soft and melty. Nothing left to do but to dip the final piece of bread, put it on top of the spinach layer and then turn the heat down so that it all could cook and toast slowly. Raw eggs folks, can’t take chances with salmonella, so Tim toasted these babies low and slow for 10 minutes, turning them over every couple of minutes.
There was plenty of flipping going on at the griddle till the sammies started looking like this:
And then more flipping and turning till the cheese started oozing out, the bread was deep golden brown and the spinach started to wilt.
At that point, Tim pulled them off the griddle, sliced and served me THE BEST GRILLED CHEESE CLUB SANDWICH ever!
We’re already planning several more variations on this grilled cheese club sandwich, so use any combo of cheeses, meats and veggies you like. Substitute them for the ones in the recipe. And then take a picture and come post it in the comments section!
- 6 Slices of firm Bread - a large artisan or sourdough boule works well for this
- 8 Slices of Bacon - fried
- 8 Ounces Mushrooms - sliced
- ½ Yellow Onion - sliced
- 4 Ounces Roasted Red Peppers - cut into strips
- 2 Ounces Sun Dried Tomatoes - chopped
- 4 Slices Provolone Cheese
- 4 Slices American Cheese
- 6 Ounces Monterey Jack Cheese - sliced ¼ inch thick
- Handful of Baby Spinach Leaves
- ½ Stick Butter - softened
- For the Egg Dip:
- 3 Eggs - Lightly Beaten
- ½ Cup Milk
- To Make Two Club Sandwiches:
- On a counter top griddle at 375F or in a non stick skillet on the stove top on medium high heat, saute the mushrooms just till softened. Do not use any oil, as this will make them too slippery.
- When the mushrooms have softened, remove them and saute the onions in the same way. Add the red pepper strips to the onions to dry them a bit so that they aren't too slippery.
- Set the onions and peppers aside when they are soft and almost translucent.
- Butter both sides of 2 slices of the bread. Butter only one side of the remaining 4 slices.
- Grill the first 2 slices (buttered on both sides) on the griddle or in the pan, till golden on both sides.
- Remove them from the griddle, then assemble the sandwich as follows:
- Stir the milk into the beaten eggs, then dip one side of each of the 4 uncooked pieces of bread into the mixture. Don't over soak the bread by letting it sit too long, just a brief dip is all that's needed.
- As you dip the first 2 slices, lay them onto the griddle, then layer with the Provolone, Bacon, Mushrooms and American Cheese.
- Place the previously grilled slices of bread on top.
- Layer the top of the grilled pieces of bread with the Pepper Jack, Onions, Red Peppers, a handful of baby Spinach and then one final layer of Pepper Jack Cheese.
- Top with the last 2 slices of egg dipped bread.
- Turn the heat to 325F on a griddle or medium heat on a stove top. Grill the sandwiches, flipping every few minutes, till they are golden brown and the cheeses are all melted.
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