Grilled Cheese with Garlic Gold Classic Balsamic Vinaigrette

We had grilled cheese this afternoon. I'd been waiting for my son to get home on spring break from UNC Chapel Hill to break out the halloom cheese. He's heard me and his brother raving about this cheese and has seen the photos here on Barbecue Master.

For anyone who has not tried grilled cheese, I must say that you are missing out. I'd rank grilled cheese right up with high quality chocolate. Yes. It is that good. I'm not even a huge cheese freak. I've never been one to just sit and eat plain cheese. I'd go with crackers with cheese. But . . . not with cheese on the grill. It just melts in my mouth, and I could eat tons of this stuff.

When grilling cheese, you want to marinate or brush it will oil or an oil based product. My favorite oil for grilled cheese is Garlic Gold. The last time I grilled cheese, I used Garlic Gold Oil. This time, I had a sample bottle they sent of their Garlic Gold Classic Balsamic Vinaigrette. Both worked great.

If you're not familiar with the Garlic Gold company, they have a ranch called Seven Oaks Ranch where they grow organic products like their garlic and then create and sell hand crafted garlic nuggets, oils, and vinaigrettes. I fell in love from the first taste, and the company keeps in touch. You really couldn't ask for nicer people, and I like to support great people making great products.

Getting the cheese ready was as simple as pouring some of the Garlic Gold Classic Balsamic Vinaigrette over the cheese. That's as easy a recipe as they come. Since the Garlic Gold oils and vinaigrettes are flavor infused, there's no need to add anything else. You don't, after all, want to overpower the cheese, and the Garlic Gold products are subtle but terrific.

I heated up the Char Broil Urban Grill which is a small two burner gas grill that is perfect for my small family. It is important to heat the grates well. So, I put the grill on high and put the lid down. When the temperature gauge hit about 600 degrees F, I opened the lid.

After the grill was good and hot, I opened the lid and waited about 5 minutes. You do want the grates hot but don't want a whole lot of heat otherwise. This is cheese after all, so don't go with high grill heat like a steak, or you will have a mess. A couple of my friends had this happen. I'm sure they just had too much heat going with the barbecue cheese. I've never had a fail on grilled cheese (knock on wood).

Grilled cheese can also be done over charcoal, and that adds a nice smoked flavor. In that case, do the same as with gas but offset the charcoal. The grate gets hot, but you have the space with no direct heat to actually grill off the cheese.

When the cheese starts to look melty (begins to droop slightly between the grates), it's time to turn the cheese. I just use grill tongs. The cheese holds together just fine.

Grilling cheese only takes a few minutes. I think I went around 6 minutes today with the lid closed part of the time due to the low temperatures outside. Brrrr. On warmer days, I may or may not close the lid. I don't leave the lid closed for long (maybe a minute), because I don't want to melt the cheese through the grates. So, this is a really simple grilled dish but one that you want to watch close.

My son from college thought the grilled cheese was fabulous, and he's going to pick up more at Whole Foods in Chapel Hill. I can't buy grilling cheese around here. I'm hoping Harris Teeter will start carrying it, because we sure do love it.

How to Grill Cheese - Halloom Cheese on the Char Broil Urban Grill

My son asked me if the cheese in the refrigerator was grilling cheese. Eli adores cheese. In fact, he had a kidney stone last year at age 16. He is the ultimate cheese freak, but he only gets it for a treat now.

I confirmed that the Halloom was, indeed, grilling cheese, and I told him that if he'd fire up the Char Broil Urban grill that I'd try grilling up a pack and use the olive oil that he brought back from Europe this summer to surprise me.

Basically, I did the Halloom grilling cheese just as I'd done the Yanni before.

I sliced the Halloom about 1/4 to a bit more thick. Then, I brushed it with olive oil. Then, I sprinkled it with Garlic Gold Nuggets. The GG garlic is super mild, so if you use regular garlic, then go easy on it. You don't want to overpower the flavor of the cheese.

You can also also use different seasoning sprinkles on the cheese too. One of our very favorites is Gary's Seasonings. But, again, use a light hand when seasoning cheese, since it already has a lot of great flavor.

The Masterbuilt barbecue smoker winner, Fred, had brought the Halloom from Canada as a gift to us, so that's how I happened to have some in the refrigerator. I briefly considered pan frying the cheese, but we really had loved the Yanni grilled. I decided to give it a try and see if I could get good results with Halloom cheese.

First, I let the Char Broil Urban grill heat up good with the lid closed. This was to get the infrared grates good and hot. Foods stick to cold grates, so preheating really is important when grilling.

After about 5 minutes (does not take long to heat the Char Broil infrared grill), I opened the lid and let some of the heat out and turned the burners down low. The time on that was around a minute with the lid open. I wanted hot grates but not a whole lot of heat for cheese. It is, after all, cheese!

With tongs, I placed the cheese on the grates. The olive oil combined with the cold temperatures outside produced a lot of initial smoke as you can see. Plus, I could hear a little sizzle.

I don't doctor up my photos, and I try to show you exactly what to expect. So, here you can see that you do get a little cheese sticking to the grates. It was minimal. This photo shows the extent of any sticking. I get a much bigger mess if I'm using barbecue sauce.

The cheese basically "set" when I placed it on the hot grates. With the heat pretty low and the cheese sliced somewhat thick, I closed the lid and let the cheese grill and smoke for around a minute with low heat.

I then opened the lid on the grill and flipped the Halloom grilling cheese and left the lid open. I could tell by the feel with the tongs that the cheese was basically ready, but I let the bottom side also set up and get grill marks. Again, this took very little time - under a minute I'd say. It could vary depending on the heat. I'd just lift a piece of cheese slightly and check.

The grilled Halloom cheese turned out perfect. It was delicious, and Eli said that he hopes we have it "at least once a month." I'm sure he'd say every day if he did not have that kidney stone issue.

I still rate Yanni grilling cheese as the tops, but Halloom is very good as well. My son at UNC can get Halloom or something similar, so we'll be grilling cheese around here.

If you've not tried grilled cheese, give it a try. It's easiest to do on a gas grill, since you can control the temperatures better, but I also do it on charocal. With charocal, I offset and do the cheese on the side without direct charcoal heat. It's a little harder to master charocal grilled cheese, but you get extra smoke flavor.