When I was growing up grilled cheese for dinner was a pretty common occurrence in our house. Now that I’m a mom, I can see why my mom was a fan.
Easy, inexpensive, everyone likes them. No one complains.
My mom made them with Kraft Singles Cheese and one of the highlights of grilled cheese making was my sister and I opening the plastic wrap on those Singles and peeling the cheese off the plastic.
We tried to open the cheese without dinging or breaking the cheese corners. Sounds easy enough but when you’re a kid and in a hurry, broken corners can be unfortunate casualties.
I will never forget all the cheese my sister and I used to eat in a sport I’d call squares-of-cheese-folding. We’d fold multiple pieces of Singles into squares and see how high we could stack the squares and how much we could fit in our mouths. At one time. The things kids do. And they still do it.
Give kids a package of Singles and it doesn’t take long before cheese folding, stacking, tearing, and even cheese art happens.
You can use cookie cutters and cut out pretty cheese shapes, layering cut out pieces on top of other pieces. Think gingerbread house decorating but with cheese. Don’t ask me how I know this.
I also grew up in Minnesota, just one state away from Wisconsin where cheese eating is a statewide sport. And we won’t talk about the Minnesota State Fair and fried cheese curds and how I love those greasy little nuggets.
What better was to embrace my inner kid than to make mini grilled cheese sandwiches.
And let’s face it, anything that’s mini just tastes better.
I love tomatoes so much and they are wonderful in grilled cheese sandwiches.
Plus, they add a few more nutrients and a pop of color to the otherwise pale, yet highly comforting, little stacks.
Oh and I really love condiments. Ketchup is required as a dip for grilled cheese.
Three cheese ranch dressing, blue cheese, salsa. Name a condiment and I’ll happily take my grilled cheese sandwiches for a bath in it.
I was out of homemade spicy honey mustard but that would have been a great little dipper, too.
Just like old times.
Except mini.
I think these would make perfect party food. Birthday parties for kids or adults, baby or bridal showers, summer parties, barbeques, Memorial Day and Fourth of July parties.
Trays of drinks being passed followed by trays of mini grilled cheese sandwiches would be a big hit I’m thinking.
Then again, I never met a pile of warm cheese and warm buttered white bread that didn’t go down oh-so-good.
Pin This Recipe
Enjoy AverieCooks.com Without Ads! 🆕
Go Ad Free
Mini Grilled Cheese and Tomato Sandwiches
Ingredients
- 1 French baguette, sliced into 1/2-inch rounds
- 2 Roma tomatoes, sliced into 1/4-inch rounds (each tomato will yield about 5-6 slices)
- Kraft Singles Cheese, 1 slice per sandwich, cut or folded into sixths
- butter, about 1 tablespoon per sandwich
Instructions
- Prepare a large non-stick skillet by spraying it with cooking spray. Butter one side of bread and lay it buttered-side-down into the pan. Top with the cheese squares by staggering them slightly when placing them onto the bread rather than stacking all the squares exactly on top of each other (this will create height to the finished sandwich). Top with one tomato slice. Butter another piece of bread and place it on top of the tomato slice, buttered-side-up. Repeat for as many sandwiches and you wish to make.
- When all your sandwiches are in the pan, turn the stove to medium or medium-high heat and cook sandwiches for about 3 minutes on the first side. Flip and cook for another 2-3 minutes on second side, or cook until both sides are browned to desired level. Serve immediately.
- Consider serving with ketchup, ketchup + hot sauce, salsa, three cheese ranch salad dressing (shown in photos), mustard, mayo, or any desired dip.
- Tip: To encourage cheese melting, use a pan with a lid as the trapped heat and steam will help encourage the cheese to melt. Otherwise you run the risk of the bread browning too fast before the cheese has melted.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
©averiecooks.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited.
Related Recipes
Spicy Baked Eggs and Hash Brown Casserole – add a few handful of shredded cheese to the batter before baking
Mango Basil Personal-Sized Tortilla Pizzas
Ha! In yesterday’s post, I was just talking about how much I love miniature stuff and then these show up in my face this morning – I want them all!!
Your little bean bites look adorable, too!
Cute little mini sandwiches with yummy looking buttery-toasty bread!! I remember the grilled cheese -tomato soup pairing when I was a kid. My first 2 yrs of college were spent in LaCrosse, WI so I know what you mean about the love of cheese there ( but those cheese curds are oh so good!). I like a classic grilled cheese but also apple w/ cheddar or pear w/Brie.
Butter….Gotta love it for browning. Cheese curds, yes, so good. Seriously how could you not love fried balls of cheese. Sounds so greasy and decadent (as are mini-donuts) but they’re so good!
These little sliders are so sweet!
I always thought it was crazy to dip grilled cheese in ketchup…until my boyfriend coaxed me to try it one night. I tried it…and loved it :) Now I’ll dip my grilled cheese in almost anything: ketchup, sriracha, BBQ sauce, coconut mango sauce. . .bring on the condiments!
Bring them on for me too..including coconut mango sauce! Do you make it or do you buy it? I need THAT!
I buy it: https://tropicalpepper.com/product.asp?idProduct=90
However, the ingredients aren’t too scary (i.e., artificial), so it might be easy to re-create!
thanks for the reply back & the link..wow that looks SO good! Right up my alley!
Averie, these are too cute! I laughed reading about your folding squares of Kraft Singles – I did that ALL the time!! I love tomato + grilled cheese… and even my family and boyfriend think I’m gross when I do this, but I am known to dip my grilled cheese sammies into ketchup! Glad you are the same!! Beautiful pics too :)
Glad you like the pics and Cheese Folding. See…EVERYONE did it, right? :)
Tomato and cheese is probably my favorite sandwich combo of all time and I LOVE sandwiches, so that’s saying a lot. These are adorable! I’d eat a dozen of them. :D And I used to do the foldy square thing with American cheese slices, too. hahaha I also used to make melted cheese sandwiches in the microwave. Those were the days! Oh, we never had the cool orange cheese, either. Always white. Not as fun! :( lol
There is just something nostalgic about the orange squares :) I’d make microwave nachos using Doritos with it, too. Memories!
My afternoon snack in high school was a toasted white bagel (from the bagel shop I worked at) with a slice of kraft melted on each half, eaten open faced. It sounds so boring, but it was so tasty and it was always exactly what I wanted. I’m craving it right now. Again.
I used to be a grilled cheese whore. I don’t think more than three days could pass without me eating one. For years that hapened. And I was picky about them too. White bread only, fake processed cheese only, and absolutely no tomatoes! Maybe some turkey slices if it was a meal, but not if it was a snack!
Growing up in Wisc, I can totally see you getting down with some cheese!
One day we have to go to the MN State fair and eat some fried cheese curds and mini donuts together :)
Adorbs! :)
Oh these are so adorable!
These are SO cute! Perfect for a walk around party out on the deck. Terrific idea.
The name of your blog makes me smile :)
Those minions sandwiches will make for a perfect snack when I have friends over for drinks..instead of the usual (and boring) tortillas + dip and/or cheeses & crackers platter.
Great idea!
Yes, way better than chips ‘n dip or the usual fare. LMK if you make anything similar!
This is SERIOUSLY awesome. I love the idea of cutting it width-wise.
I love anything mini, and I love grilled cheese with tomato. These mini sandwiches are adorable!
Thanks so much, Laura!
Hi Averie, haven’t been here in a week, and it seems like a long time… Your little grilled cheese sandwiches are very-very cute! Lovely writing…
Welcome back! Was wondering where you were :) Glad you like the little sammies :)
I love grilled cheese! *when i could eat it :/ Now my tummy doesn’t like dairy — But I love brie with green apple or brie just straight up on a baguette! those pics are gorgeous! thanks for sharing:)
brie and green apple (or just brie) is AWESOME! :)
Oh my! This post brought back so many memories for me!!! Haha, I forgot about cheese stacking – I did that too! And I remember getting an immense amount of satisfaction from peeling the plastic wrapper off perfectly. I would eat slices of that cheese for a snack … or while I was looking for a snack … or while at friends’ parties in high school, lol!
glad I’m not the only one who cheese-stacked :)
These are such fun little grilled cheese sandwiches & I love reading your memories too. Think I can recall doing some of the same things!
When I was making these, I was thinking of you! The 50mm lens and the grilled cheese; you were on my mind :)