Panko Crusted Grilled Cheese & Tomato Sandwich

Yes, despite my love for cooking, I haven’t done much of it of late.  Not only lacking in the cooking department, it’s pretty obvious that I’m also lacking in blog posts. Of course, this is not intentional as  I’ve been buried alive with seemingly infinitive workload and stress (FYI- my stress threshold is pretty low). I do apologise for the lack of responses and visiting my peers’ blogs. It’s something I’m eager to catch up, hopefully very soon.

{Hey ladies, check out my crust! }

Getting takeaways all the time can certainly burn a hole in your pocket. So making grilled cheese sandwich for dinner is my attempt to save some money to compensate my previous splurge on takeaways. Also I need a quick way to use up a loaf of stale french bread which originally intended for some fancy bruschettas. Anyway, since the bread became dry and harden as a result of leaving in the fridge for a tad too long, I thought making  french toast would be a great way to soften the bread. Since I have a weakness of everything crunchy, I immediately thought of the french toast with panko recipe found here.

Maybe my exhaustion from work has made my brain gone haywired, I’ve decided to combine grilled cheese sandwich with panko breaded french toast all in one. Yeah, it sounds super greasy, and therefore the tomato factor, just so I can convince myself there’s some ‘health’ benefit with my money-saving dinner. I do realise grilled cheese sandwich is not exactly a proper meal calibre but when there’s time constraint or supplies run low in the fridge and pantry, it may just be the next best thing to a fulfilling hot meal.  

(A Fuss Free Cooking Recipe)

Serves 2 – 3 depending on appetite

8 slices of stale french loaf (4 slices of normal bread loaf)

1 cup grated cheese (I’ve used red cheddar)

1 cup panko breadcrumbs

1 egg

1 tbsp milk

4 grape tomatoes, thinly sliced

Salt & pepper

1. Whisk egg, milk, salt and pepper in a shallow bowl. Set aside.

2. Pour panko breadcrumbs and grated cheese on respective plates. Set aside.

3. Add some grated cheese on a slice of bread, then layer with sliced tomatoes, then some cheese again and a second slice of bread.

4. Dip both sides of the cheese sandwich in the egg mixture and coat it with panko breadcrumbs. Shake of the excess breadcrumbs.

5. In a heated pan greased with some neutral cooking oil, grill both sides of the sandwich until golden brown. Keep the flame on low  as we need to ensure the cheese is melted at the same time not burning the breadcrumbs.

6. Repeat step 2 and 3 for the remaining 6 slices of bread, cheese, milk and breadcrumbs. 

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