Pizza Margherita Grilled Cheese

Ahhhhhhh cheese. And bread? Don’t get me started on the wonders of bread. Put these two together and you have something truly amazing – the grilled cheese sandwich.  But it is also the nemesis of many diets – including a low sodium diet.  So, how can we get that same crusty, ooey-gooey melty deliciousness without sky-high sodium?  We take flavors from garlic and basil, use an amazing low so bread, and use a creamy, fresh mozzarella.

For the low sodium pros out there, you know that the average bread you pick up in your grocery store is usually very high in sodium (perhaps as high as 1100 mg for the amount used in this sandwich). So in this recipe I use Easy Crusty Bread, which is ahhhhh-mazing for grilled cheese (and only 12 mg for the amount used in this sandwich).  You can, of course, use your favorite low sodium bread for this, but I would recommend a homemade bread since some of the store-bought low-salt options tend to be a bit bland. For the cheese, I use BelGioioso Fresh Mozzarella, which comes in at only 85 mg per ounce.

As far as prepping the ingredients goes, the only thing that I would advise is that you slice the basil into ribbons before you assemble the sandwich.  (I don’t like full leaves on a cooked sandwich because I think they are a tad slimy that way.)  To ribbon the basil, simply stack the basil, roll it up tightly, and slice. Oh, and when you assemble, I’d put the basil between the bread and the cheese so that when you flip the sandwich the basil stays where it belongs.

You can probably guess how you put these together. You brush one side of each slice of bread with olive oil and sprinkle with garlic powder (alternately you can slice a clove of garlic and rub the bread with the freshly sliced garlic before you brush on the oil). Then you assemble and sear in a pan until the cheese is melty and the bread is golden. Then eat it. Savor every bite.

Pizza Margherita Grilled Cheese

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Low sodium crusty bread frames this sandwich of mozzarella, tomato, and fresh basil.

SODIUM COUNT: 182.7 mg per serving (makes 1 serving)

• Prep Time: 5 minutes
• Cook Time: 20 minutes
• Total Time: 25 minutes
• Yield: 1 1x

Ingredients

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• 4 slices Easy Crusty Bread* ((See August 28, 2016 post))
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• pinch garlic powder
• 6–8 large fresh basil leaves
• 2 ounces fresh mozzarella ((such as BelGioioso))
• 1/2 medium tomato (sliced)

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Instructions

1. Lay out the slices of bread and brush the olive oil on each slice of bread. Sprinkle with garlic powder and set aside.
2. Stack the basil leaves on one another, with the larger leaves on the outside. Roll the stack of basil and slice thinly into ribbons (see basil photos above).
3. Lay two slices of bread (oiled side down) in a cool skillet. Sprinkle the basil on the bread slices, top with mozzarella slices, and tomato slices. Top the sandwich with the other slice of bread (oiled side up).
4. Place the skillet on the stovetop and cook the sandwich over medium-low heat until the bread is golden and the cheese is melted (roughly ten minutes per side). Yes, this is a long time. I like to cook it low and slow since it is very thick and takes a while to heat through.

Notes

*Nutritional information is for 6 ounces of Easy Crusty Bread, totaling 22 mg sodium.

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION Yield: 1 servings

Sodium: 182.7 mg, Calories: 622.0 Total Fat: 30.3 g, Saturated Fat: 8.8 g, Cholesterol: 40.3 mg, Carbohydrates: 64.4 g, Fiber: 2.5 g, Sugar: 1.2 g, Protein: 19.5 g.