The Mess-Free Method To Flip Grilled Cheese Is Infuriatingly Easy

We've all been there, anxiously awaiting the cheese to melt and the bread to toast on our perfect grilled cheese sizzling in the skillet, then losing all progress as the slices of bread slide apart and the cheese oozes out mid-flip. How is there not a fool-proof way to flip grilled cheese? It's supposed to be one of the easiest meals to make, but if you've ever stared down at a destroyed mess of melted cheese and bread, you likely feel differently. But we, like the creator of this video, were today years old when we learned the trick to seamlessly flipping every stovetop grilled cheese: Flip the pan, not the sandwich.

The traditional method involves sliding a spatula under the sandwich and flipping it over so that the sandwich also flips and lands with the opposite side down in the pan. But it's more complicated than that when put into action; the sandwich can fall apart mid-air, or it can land on the edge of the pan — it's less than pretty. With this hack, you slide the spatula under the sandwich and lift it off of the pan, then you lift the pan off the stove, turn it upside down over the sandwich so that the inside of the pan presses against the top of the grilled cheese, and then flip both the spatula and the pan over. The sandwich will be perfectly centered inside the pan, ready to crisp to perfection on the other side.

For those who prefer their grilled cheese straight-forward and quick, with just bread and cheese thrown in a pan, this trick eliminates any flip fails and can save you some time (and anxiety). It can also be helpful for those who prefer loaded grilled cheeses; more toppings often means more of a risky flip. Now you can play around with sweet and salty grilled cheese upgrades and be confident your sandwich will stick together.

But for those who have a more gourmet technique, it may not be the safest. If you believe better grilled cheese calls for melting butter in the skillet and sprinkling salt over the sandwich, you can imagine what would happen when you try to flip the skillet over. Melted butter and salt flakes do not mix well with an open flame on the stove (or even a hot induction burner, for that matter). If you want to try it but can't bear the thought of a grilled cheese with dry bread, try spreading the butter on the bread rather than melting it in the pan; if the bread absorbs all of the butter and leaves none remaining in the skillet, go for the trick flip.

For the best grilled cheese, cover the frying pan with a lid while it cooks on both sides; the steam will help the cheese melt before the bread burns.