Grilled Cheese Bar
Be the MVP of your party with this fun and delicious Grilled Cheese Bar! Get creative with the ingredients, let your guests build their own sandwiches and then award prizes for the more unique sandwiches.
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The matchup for the big game is set. I’m not talking the weekly round of Risk with your friends from high school or the friendly game of Clue with your kids. I’m talking the Super Bowl. I’m talking the culmination of an entire season of games. 256 awesome, edge-of-your-seat games. (Ok, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration…especially if the New York Jets were involved.) The Super Bowl also marks the end of the football season, but I’ll mourn that next week. Aside from the actual game (and the commercials), we all know that the Super Bowl is about delicious food. Make sure you’re prepared for the big game with this awesome Grilled Cheese Bar!
Grilled Cheese Bar
If you’re a football fan like me, then you’ve probably been watching the playoffs for the past several weeks hoping for the best possible matchup for the Super Bowl. But what if football isn’t your thing? Well, you better take a crash course this week so you can at least pretend you know something about the gridiron. (The gridiron is just another name for the football field, BTW.) For starters, this year’s Super Bowl is XLIX, which is just a fancy Roman numeral way of saying #49. As a former Latin teacher, I’m resisting the urge to launch into a lesson on Roman numerals. Just trust me.
So you really want to impress your friends with your Super Bowl prowess? Then slip in that Don Shula coached in more Super Bowls (6) than any other coach. Or perhaps the fact that no punt has ever been returned for a touchdown in the Super Bowl. (Nope, it hasn’t happened…yet.) Then you can really stump the crowd with this one: What 4 franchises (including relocation and renaming) have never been to a Super Bowl? (Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans) If there’s anyone at your party that knows the answer to that one, then they deserve a special treat. Like a delicious sandwich from your Grilled Cheese Bar!
So enough of the Trivial Pursuit: Super Bowl Edition. Let’s get on to the food! (After all, we all know the tasty appetizers are half the fun of any Super Bowl party) Today’s recipe is more of an idea than an actual recipe. Consider this one something like a DIY-craft…involving delicious ingredients. For your Super Bowl get together this year, consider welcoming your guests with a Grilled Cheese Bar. Lay out an assortment of different types of bread, cheeses and ingredients…and let your guests build their own glorious sandwich. Heck, turn it into a contest and award prizes for whoever builds the best and worst “most unique” sandwiches. (You can be the judge of the best, and then let someone else judge the “unique” category.)
For me, my ideal grilled cheese sandwich involves cheddar and Gouda cheese, bacon and pickled jalapenos on rustic bread. Oh, and I love to put herbs on the outside of my sandwich before I grill it up. After you spread the butter on the bread, just sprinkle on some seasonings. I usually go with just a simple Italian seasoning mix and sprinkle of salt. As the butter melts, those herbs get cooked into the outer portion of the bread…and the result is magical.
I’ve included a list of different breads, cheeses and ingredients below to get you started…but get creative here! Tip: The antipasti bar at your local grocery store is a great way to grab a little bit of all sorts of unique ingredients. Have fun!
Did you make a Grilled Cheese Bar at home? Leave a comment, or snap a photo and tag me on Instagram (@Spicedblog). I’d love to see your creative versions of this fun idea!
Grilled Cheese Bar
Ingredients
Cheese Options
- Mozzarella
- Gouda
- Cheddar
- Pepper Jack
- Swiss
- goat cheese crumbled
Toppings Options
- bacon cooked
- white onions thinly sliced
- sundried tomatoes sliced
- roasted peppers
- pickled jalapeno slices
- Granny Smith apple thinly sliced
- prepared pesto
- ridged potato chips
- fresh spinach
- fresh arugula
- pepperoni
- French fries
- olives sliced
Bread options
- white bread
- wheat bread
- sourdough bread
- rye bread
Instructions
- Lay out an assortment of breads, cheeses and toppings.
- Let your guests build their own sandwiches.
- To speed up the cooking process, I recommend using a large griddle or several large saute pans.
- Vote on the best (and worst) creations by your guests.
Looking for more tasty Super Bowl appetizer recipes? Check out these other favorites, too:
Alabama Style BBQ Chicken Pizza
You know what man? This is a neat idea. A DIY grilled cheese party is AWESOME. I’m definitely doing it this weekend!
#WolfpackSmart #WolfpackEats
Seriously – wolves eat cheese?
Wolves LOVE cheese, Shashi! You should know that. It’s like the #1 wolf food of all time. 🙂
I love this idea! Thanks for sharing!
A grilled cheese bar???? Say what???? Duuude – so so BRILLIANT!!! Now that I have found out that Gouda and Cheddar don’t mess me u – I so wish we were Y’ALLS neighbors!!! That pesto and sundried tomatoes on a grilled cheese is just oh so fancy! My daughter and I made a grilled cheese with Andouille sausage and caramelized onions – sandwiched between beet discs! Yup – beet discs! I dare you (or any other beet haters) to try and throw them across the “gridiron” without sneaking a bite…
Haha…I highly suspect we would eat a LOT more beets if you were our neighbor, Shashi. 🙂 Beet discs instead of bread? Now that’s pretty crazy…but I’m willing to give it a shot. Oh, and that andouille sausage and caramelized onion grilled cheese sounds amazing. Like I want to eat that for breakfast right now. 🙂
Ohmigerd, Dave… I can’t even deal with reading the word SUPER BOWL right now. Ugh… I’m in such a deep depression over the disastrous results of last Sunday that the only thing that MIGHT console me a teeny tiny bit is a triple decker grilled cheese with extra bacon and 4 kinds of cheese. *sigh*
Yeah, I was feeling for ya on Sunday afternoon, Becca. That was pretty sad. I’m not a Packers fan, but I was pulling for them that day because I didn’t want Seattle in the Super Bowl. I’m thinking a quadruple decker grilled cheese with 5 kinds of cheese is what you need! Let’s make that happen. Score one for cheesy deliciousness! 🙂
That looks like the ultimate grilled cheese! So cheesy (no pun intended) and gooey! Pinned 🙂
Hehe…grilled cheese is like my favorite quick and easy comfort food, Christina! I can do it with just plain cheesy cheese, but the best is when you add all of the other toppings in there, too. It’s perfect for chasing away the thought of shoveling this upstate NY snow!!
I found your blog through a fellow blogger and glad I did 🙂 I love this idea of a grilled cheese bar..I can live on grilled cheese forever..pesto and roasted peppers are my favorite toppings from that list, yum!
Well, hello there, Manali! Nice to meet ya. 🙂 Pesto and roasted peppers on a grilled cheese sound amazing. I’m thinking maybe a bit of grated Parmesan mixed in there would be fun, too. Now all I can think about is grilled cheese…and it’s only 8:15am here. Haha!
Absolutely genius idea mate! I once did a pancake bar for brunch and it was a hit so I can only imagine how epic this would be!
When I come to America, I’ll need you to teach me about all this ‘game day’ shenanigans.
A grilled cheese bar sounds amazing!
We have a burger bar party last year and it went down well. Surprisingly the veggie quinoa burgers were the most popular ones.
Veggie quinoa burgers won? That does surprise me, Dannii! I mean, I’m sure they were tasty…but it’s really difficult to beat a classic burger. I’m thinking a burger bar party might have to happen once all of this snow melts. 🙂
What a fun, cool idea! I’ll take a Sourdough, Gouda and bacon please with a slice or two of Granny Smith. Now I’m hungry…
Now that sounds like an amazing sandwich right there, Kevin! Go ahead and slap one on the griddle for me when you make yours!
You have created the Superbowl of grilled cheese ideas with this grilled cheese bar concept and I deem you MVP! And your version with bacon and jalapeños? Um, yes!
My favorite grilled cheese involves pimento cheese, bacon and tomatoes. Yum!
Wow…the Super Bowl hasn’t even happened yet, and I’m already the MVP? Haha…awesome! Thank you so much, Tamara. 🙂 Also, pimento cheese grilled cheese sounds pretty amazing. I think I need to make that happen pretty soon…it would be incredible!!
Oh man, this is a killer freaking idea! Totally pinning this so I remember to make this happen in the future. I’ll have to make extra bacon, of course. All my friends love bacon (you can’t be my friend if you don’t… there are rules)
Then we are best friends. #Bacon4Life