Maybe it's called something else, but to me a grilled cheese sandwich with extra stuff in it is an "ultimate". The extra stuff I'm referring to is generally tomato, onion (thin sliced raw or grilled) and bacon (already cooked).
The problem I'd like to correct is that often the cheese has difficulty fusing the sandwich together because it doesn't stick well to the other ingredients. I've tried a few different placements of the ingredients but they all usually end with on slice of bread not really "attached" the way a proper grilled cheese should be. For example: Bread, Cheese, Other, More Cheese, Bread : this tend to give me two separate slices of bread with cheese and some ingredients in the cheese.
Is there any special technique to keeping this thing together as one piece?
Best Answer
Ignore the purists. If it's got cheese in it, and you're grilling it, it's grilled cheese.
The problem is this: your cold ingredients are keeping the cheese from properly melting through. The cheese is what binds the whole thing together. If there is not enough cheese, or if the cheese hasn't transitioned completely to gooey deliciousness, the sandwich is going to fall apart.
The solution is to heat your cold ingredients (at least to near room temp), and to cook the grilled cheese longer, at a lower temperature, so the heat has time to penetrate before the bread gets overcooked.