How to make the perfect cheese toastie

Grilled cheese or cheese toastie: whatever you call it, it’s one of the world’s most popular lunchtime (or late-night) sandwiches. And here’s how to make it perfect.

Georgia Mahood

3 min read

March 26, 2024 - 5:00AM

Gooey cheese is guaranteed.

A grilled cheese sandwich is very simple, consisting of bread, cheese and usually butter. But sometimes the simplest things are super hard to perfect.

So with the help of taste.com.au’s food team, we’ve broken down each step of making a cheese toastie to ensure you perfect your toastie-making skills – from picking the best type of bread to the best way to cook your cheese toastie.

What type of bread is best for making grilled cheese?

Bread makes up half of your toastie, so it’s important to pick the correct kind of bread. Sure, wholegrain or rye would be a great way to get some extra nutrients in your cheese toastie, but when it comes to the perfect grilled cheese toastie the classics are where it’s at. Taste.com.au’s Food Director, Amira Georgy, says: “Thick white bread is the best”, or if you want a toastie with a little more pizzazz then “crusty sourdough as a close second.”

A grilled cheese sandwich or toastie is very simple, consisting of bread, cheese and usually butter.

What’s the best cheese to use in a cheese toastie?

Cheddar, mozzarella, brie, gouda: the world is your oyster when it comes to picking cheese for your cheese toastie. In terms of strong cheesy flavour, cheddar is best and for the ultimate cheese pull, Swiss is a great option.

Amira explains: “I love a cheddar and Swiss cheese combo, so one of each slice. If you like a stronger cheesy flavour, then you should probably go for cheddar over Swiss. But Swiss has a better texture and a luscious cheesy pull!”

Food Editor Elisa (who is a cheddar girl) adds: “More is more in my opinion. You can never have too much of the cheesy good stuff.”

So it’s safe to say that it’s all about personal preference when it comes to the type and volume of cheese.

Which spread is best to use on the outside of a toastie: butter, mayo or cheese?

By now, we’ve all learnt that putting a spread on the outside makes for a super crispy and golden grilled cheese. Taste.com.au’s Food Director, Michelle Southan, tested butter, mayo and grated cheese to see which worked best on the outside of a toastie.

Although cheese resulted in a nice savoury crust and the toastie went surprisingly golden with mayo, Michelle found that butter was the perfect spread for putting on the outside of a toastie. She said: “Butter gives it an overall crispy crunch, it cooks evenly and has a lovely golden colour.”

Butter is the perfect spread for putting on the outside of a toastie.

How to cook the perfect grilled cheese

When making cheese toasties, most tend to toss up between using a frypan or a sandwich press. The pro of a frypan is that you can really control the temperature, but it’s harder to get that gooey cheese melt that is integral to a cheese toastie.

A sandwich press is Amira’s preferred method of making grilled cheese. She says: “I prefer a sandwich press for pure convenience, because it does both sides at once.” The pressure from both sides of the press ensures you get a crispy, even golden toast and the cheese becomes gooey so you’re guaranteed that signature pull.

If you like your toasties retro, Elisa reminds people not to forget their trusty jaffle makers. “I do usually use a sandwich press for my toasted sandwiches,” she says, “but sometimes for a bit of nostalgia, I love an old-school jaffle.”

Our favourite cheese toasties

Best classic toastie: Pan-toasted ham and cheese sandwich

Butter on the outside, thick white bread and gruyere (a type of Swiss) – this is a toastie that ticks all of our ultimate grilled cheese recipe boxes. To make this toastie extra delish, we added some Dijon mustard.

Pan-toasted ham and cheese toastie.

Best jaffle: Satay chicken jaffles

If growing up, you loved when the jaffle maker would get whipped out while camping, then you’ll love our satay chicken jaffles. Instead of butter, we used peanut butter and hoisin sauce to get a crispy, caramelisation on the outside. And don’t worry – there’s plenty of cheddar cheese in these pockets of flavour.

Satay chicken jaffle toastie.

Fanciest cheese toastie: Croque madame

A croque madame is what the French call a cheese toastie with the addition of an egg on top. Use good quality cheese and fresh bread to make these and you’ve got a winner Sunday brunch sorted.

Croque madame toastie.

Elisa says she also likes to fancy her toastie up by wrapping her bread with a few slices of prosciutto before toasting. “It goes nice and crispy!” she says.

Now, who else is craving a toastie?