How To Make A Starbucks-Inspired Grilled Cheese At Home (Hint: It's All In The Butter)

Starbucks isn't just about whimsical coffee drinks and delicious baked goods. The chain has also mastered savory menu items like lunch sandwiches — and what better classic sandwich than grilled cheese to win customers' hearts? Starbucks' grilled cheese certainly has a fan following, considering all of the copycat recipes out there, including our own. However, if you want to enjoy a Starbucks-inspired grilled cheese at home, the key is all in the butter.

What makes the sandwich so special is the crispy, crunchy cheese coating on the outside of the bread. In order to recreate that coating at home, you need to make a compound butter. Despite a complex-sounding name, compound butter is an easy method for flavoring butter that involves adding ingredients to softened butter. In the case of the Starbucks grilled cheese, you'll be mixing in Parmesan cheese and minced garlic into butter.

The easiest way to get butter nice and soft is to let it sit out at room temperature for between 30 and 60 minutes. Once the butter is soft, stir in grated Parmesan cheese and minced garlic and spread the compound butter over one side of each piece of bread. Ensure that each piece is generously coated, then you can assemble the sandwich, placing the cheese on the unbuttered side of one of the slices, topping it with the other slice, and grilling it over a hot skillet. The compound butter will toast the bread, create a crunchy parmesan coating, and infuse the sandwich with cheesy, aromatic flavor.

The Parmesan butter coating is the principal element that will turn your homemade grilled cheese into a Starbucks dupe, but it's only one part of the puzzle. Sourdough bread is the best type of bread to use on this grilled cheese, not just because Starbucks uses it, but also because it's sturdy, toasts well, and has a unique tang that cuts through the richness of all that cheese. While Starbucks' website says it uses a blend of baby Gouda and mild cheddar, we think the cheese blend your Starbucks sandwich dupe needs is white cheddar and mozzarella.

Of course, the beauty of making grilled cheese at home is that you can customize it and elevate it with unique ingredients. This homemade Starbucks grilled cheese would taste delicious with the addition of sundried tomatoes. You can bring an herby element to the coating with the help of dried oregano or this McCormick Italian Seasoning. The sharp cheesiness of this Starbucks grilled cheese would benefit from the sweetness of fig jam. You could bring more protein to the mix with prosciutto or ham.

No grilled cheese sandwich is complete without a cup of tomato soup. Our 3-ingredient tomato soup will complement your sandwich nicely, or pick up a carton of our top-ranked store-bought tomato soup, Imagine Organics Creamy Tomato. If you want to keep the Starbucks theme going, we've amassed a list of Starbucks copycat recipes with everything from drinks to desserts.