The Tasty Bread Swap You'll Want To Use For Your Next Grilled Cheese

For such a straightforward, uncomplicated classic, there sure are a lot of different types of grilled cheese. There's the grilled cheese you make at 4 a.m. by the oven range light in an otherwise dark kitchen. There's after-school snack grilled cheese. There's bar snack grilled cheese served in a plastic basket, and fancy bistro grilled cheese that (for some reason) costs $14. However folks are enjoying their grilled cheeses, it's clear that they're definitely enjoying them. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture via CNBC, the average American ate roughly 38 pounds of cheese per person per year in 2018. In 2009, NPR reported that U.S. consumers put away at least 2.2 billion grilled cheese sammies every single year.

Do you use butter or mayo on grilled cheese? According to a Tasting Table Exclusive Survey, over a third of readers named American cheese as their favorite for making this sandwich. But, is cheddar your go-to? Some foodies like to elevate their grilled cheese sammy with pesto, mushrooms, apples, or thick strips of peppered bacon. Daytime cafe in Williamsburg, Brooklyn does a grilled cheese with gruyere, tomatoes, and red pepper jam. But, the best grilled cheeses don't have to be wicked fancy or even deviate that heavily from the O.G. grilled cheese: Kraft singles on white bread. Today, we aren't adding anything new: We're swapping out. Here's the tasty bread swap you'll want to use for your next grilled cheese.

In Episode 54 of the Inside Trader Joe's podcast (via YouTube), several TJ's employees share their favorite foodie hacks made with Trader Joe's products. Tara Miller, "director of words and phrases and clauses for Trader Joe's," suggests combining TJ's unique Bomba Hot Pepper Sauce with a tub of Garlic Spread Dip for a killer pizza sauce. Another employee called Alex recommends turning a bag of ready-to-bake pizza dough into a quick and easy monkey bread.

At nearly 22 minutes into the episode, Matt Sloan, the self-described "marketing product guy," says the ultimate grilled cheese hack is swapping out your bread for garlic naan. If you've never tried it before, naan is a flat, oblong, leavened bread, per Healthline. It's a staple of Indian cuisine, and there are different regional Persian, Pakistani, and Afghan varieties. For your next grilled cheese, the garlic flavor of the naan would pair well with buttery Havarti or pungent fontina cheese. Naan purveyor Stonefire suggests adding bacon and a ketchup-mayo sauce. To complete the meal, instead of classic tomato soup, your garlic naan grilled cheese might pair well with a thick pumpkin bisque.