Turn Grilled Cheese Into A New Orleans-Inspired Mashup With This Classic Sandwich

You know good things are going to happen when you combine a classic like grilled cheese with maybe the best American food city. New Orleans' unique culinary landscape has been inspiring chefs for generations, with its melting-pot culture giving birth to amazingly flavorful fusion creations. But while most people understandably think of Creole or Cajun cooking when they think of New Orleans, Italian immigrants also made their mark, especially with a sandwich that is just begging to be turned into a grilled cheese: the muffuletta.

That's what our recipe for a loaded muffuletta grilled cheese does. It's understandable to ask when a grilled cheese adds enough ingredients to stop being a grilled cheese, but the gooey dairy is still very much at the center of this sandwich. It just recognizes that the salty, briny flavors of traditional muffuletta are the perfect counterpoint to melted cheese.

There are only two things you need to turn your grilled cheese into a muffuletta: some Italian cold cuts and an olive spread. The latter may be the more essential part, as it's that tangy flavor that really sets the traditional sandwich apart. Our recipe calls for spicy giardiniera pickles, which get pulsed in a food processor with olives, bell pepper, lemon zest, and olive oil until it forms a chunky but spreadable tapenade. The cold cuts are usually a combination of three different styles, which can vary by recipe. In this case, we stuck with a mix of soppressata salami, capicola, and mortadella. Those choices are popular in many versions of the sandwich, but others use ham in place of the mortadella or capicola, and you can too.

There are really only two things that set this grilled cheese recipe apart from a standard muffuletta, and the first is the ratio of cheese to meat. Most versions have a thicker layer of cold cuts with a slice of provolone, but our recipe flips this around, using twice as much cheese as meat. Mozzarella is also added to give the sandwich more of a melty texture when cooked. So this really is a cheese-forward sandwich despite the additions.

The second thing is the other essential step of a grilled cheese, which is actually cooking it. With so much filling, we recommend pressing down on the sandwich as it cooks in the pan, using the weight of another heavy pan. This creates that ideal crispy contrast between the toasted exterior and melty interior, which normal muffulettas don't offer.

And those muffuletta flavors can become so many other dishes beyond grilled cheese. One of our other favorites is a muffuletta take on bruschetta, which layers tapenade, fresh mozzarella, and cold cuts as the base for a fresh tomato bruschetta topping. It shows how those salty tapenade flavors can be just as good cutting through the fresh flavor of tomato as they are through rich cheese. So make yourself a grilled cheese muffuletta, and be inspired to use those leftover ingredients in all kinds of new ways.