I’ve called myself a lazy cook, but the truth is I just like to keep things simple. There’s something about food that celebrates each individual flavor, the addition of each whole ingredient, that just makes me happy. Keeping things simple is what I aim for in all parts of my life so I’m always excited to find products that help me do that.
I don’t use margarine but I hate using butter that’s straight-from-the-fridge hard. I’ll admit that a lot of the time I just leave my butter sitting on the counter during the day so that it’s spreadable when I need it.
I was excited to try out Land O Lakes® Butter with Canola Oil because having a high quality butter that I can spread straight from the fridge just makes my life easier. It only has 3 simple ingredients: sweet cream, canola oil and salt. The addition of canola oil makes the butter spreadable but I don’t have to resort to something that has a long list of ingredients I can’t pronounce.
Caprese Grilled Cheese Sandwich
One of our go-to lunches around here is grilled cheese — but not just any grilled cheese – we fill ours with anything we can get our hands on. Yesterday’s lunch was the perfect opportunity to test out Land O Lakes® Butter with Canola Oil on my new favorite grilled cheese concoction — a caprese grilled cheese sandwich.
If you like caprese salad, this sandwich is to die for. My kids wouldn’t touch it but that just meant there was more for me! Fortunately grilled cheese is easy enough to adapt to everyone’s taste so I was able to make myself exactly what I wanted and still put together a lunch they enjoyed too.
Ingredients
- Sour dough bread (or another high quality crusty bread)
- fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced
- fresh tomato, sliced
- fresh basil
- Land O Lakes® Butter with Canola Oil
Preparation
Butter your bread of choice with Land O Lakes® Butter with Canola Oil. This will spread on smoothly straight from the fridge so you don’t have to mess with pulling it out before hand. This is kind of a big deal at our house because we have a habit of planning lunch 5 minutes in advance.
Layer the unbuttered side of your bread with sliced fresh mozzarella and sliced tomato. If you slice your tomatoes nice and thin, they’ll heat all the way through. I love how tender they get in this sandwich.
I use a neat trick to get everything placed just right. Slice the round tomato slices in half so you can fill in the empty spaces and get an even layer of flavor in your sandwich.
Sprinkle with thinly sliced fresh basil. I’ve found that the best way to get nice thin slices is to roll your basil up tightly then slice it. This makes it easier to cut into since it’s bunched up all together.
As an alternative, you could use a thin layer of pesto on your bread to get the basil flavor. I love pesto in grilled cheese so that would be delicious as well. There’s just something about fresh herbs that I can’t resist though.
Grill your sandwich for 2-3 minutes on each side or until it’s nice and toasted and the cheese is melted. If you notice that your bread is starting to brown before your cheese is melted, you can use the lid from a pot to cover your sandwich in the pan. This will trap the heat and allow your cheese to melt faster without burning the outside of your bread.
Drizzle this with some balsamic vinegar to give it an extra kick!
Serve and enjoy! With only a few simple ingredients, you have a delicious gourmet lunch.
- Sour dough bread (or another high quality crusty bread)
- fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced
- fresh tomato, sliced
- fresh basil
- Land O Lakes® Butter with Canola Oil
- Butter your bread of choice with Land O Lakes® Butter with Canola Oil.
- Layer the unbuttered side of your bread with sliced fresh mozzarella and sliced tomato. Slice the round tomato slices in half so you can fill in the empty spaces and get an even layer of flavor in your sandwich.
- Sprinkle evenly with thinly sliced fresh basil.
- Alternative: Use a thin layer of pesto on your bread to get the basil flavor. I love pesto in grilled cheese so that would be delicious as well. There’s just something about fresh herbs that I can’t resist though.
- Grill your sandwich for 2-3 minutes on each side or until it’s nice and toasted and the cheese is melted.
- If you notice that your bread is starting to brown before your cheese is melted, you can use the lid from a pot to cover your sandwich in the pan. This will trap the heat and allow your cheese to melt faster without burning the outside of your bread.
- Drizzle this with some balsamic vinegar to give it an extra kick!
- Serve and enjoy! With only a few simple ingredients, you have a delicious gourmet lunch.
The author was compensated by Land O’Lakes for this post. All opinions are my own.
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