My One-Ingredient Glow-Up For The Absolute Best Grilled Cheese

On a crisp fall day, there isn't much more tempting than a sandwich of fresh, warm toasted bread oozing with gooey, melted cheese. It's almost as if you can imagine the slow-motion cheese pull as you separate the sandwich halves hovering before your hungry lunchtime eyes. (Sorry.) But one easy upgrade can take your grilled cheese to a whole other autumnal place. A spread of cranberry sauce has entered the chat.

Much like pumpkin spice, flavors like cranberry simply scream fall. Whether the fruit evokes the nostalgia of family gatherings or the idea of leafy park walks and cooling weather, a generous swipe of tart cranberry sauce on your grilled cheese is just the ticket to cut through the richness of your cheese of choice and brighten up the entire enterprise for a balanced, gourmet bite. The cranberry sauce can be homemade or store-bought, and even doctored up with orange zest a la chef Duff Goldman. Either way, the zing of the cranberries and the sweetness of the sauce makes a perfect foil for the star of the sandwich, the cheese.

Cranberry sauce lends an extra layer of flavor that lightens up the often palate-coating, one-note cheese profile. So, get yourself an assembly line going and get to spreading, sandwiching, and cooking. The ultimate grilled cheese is toasted to golden brown perfection and one way to get there is to swap butter for mayonnaise. With bread in hand, spread some mayonnaise on one side of each slice and deftly coat the other side with cranberry sauce. Sandwich in your favorite fromage, a few wedges of brie, or a blend of multiple cheeses, and off to the hot pan or griddle you go. Or, take it up a notch further and slide in a few whisper-thin slices of apple first for an extra bit of textural contrast and sweetness.

If you like the idea of a fruity kick of cranberry sauce but don't have any in the house, you could try other sweet grilled cheese flavor enhancers like quince paste, fig jam, or onion jam that you may have in the fridge from your last charcuterie board. For results that are worth standing in line for, make sure to follow tips for the crispiest grilled cheese like cooking it low and slow, using a weight to press down the sandwich, and toasting it in a cast iron pan. A warning: Once you've tried cranberry sauce on your grilled cheese, you may never make it the "plain" way again.