Caramelized Onions and Mushrooms Grilled Cheese

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As a vegetarian living in a rural college town I find that it is virtually impossible to find a decent vegetarian meal at our local restaurants. That is not to say that most restaurants don't try, they do, but they usually do so by offering a grilled veggie and cheese sandwich. I am a connoisseur of grilled cheeses, so this particular trend does not bother me in the slightest. In fact, I am delighted when I see it on a menu. What does bother me is when the local restaurants decide it is a good idea to take the lonely vegetarian option away and replace it with a grilled meat and cheese variety. This happened to me just last month at the new pub in town, The Handlebar. They not only have a very limited vegetarian menu (consisting of literally beer and their fabulous beer cheese and pretzels), but they also had the nerve to offer a caramelized onion grilled cheese sandwich with BACON. And if you do not want bacon, guess what? You cannot have the caramelized onions either, because they are cooked together. *sigh*

Tonight as I was rummaging through my refrigerator trying to figure out what my husband and I were going to have for dinner, I realized that I had the perfect ingredients to make a vegetarian friendly caramelized onion grilled cheese sandwich. The following recipe is what I concocted. Enjoy.

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 35 minutes
Serves: 2 people


Ingredients:
  • A large handful of mushrooms
  • Half of a small onion
  • 1 teaspoon olive oil
  • Cheddar cheese
  • Swiss cheese
  • Butter
  • Four pieces of sourdough bread (I used multi grain sourdough because I think it tastes fabulous)

Directions:

 1.   Heat the teaspoon of olive oil in a small pan.
2.   Slice the mushrooms and the half onion (keep the onion slices on the larger side)
3.   Put the sliced mushrooms and onion in the pan with the olive oil and cook for about 30 minutes on low heat. Cook until the onions brown, turning every couple of minutes.






(They should look something like this, when they are done.)











4.   Assemble your grilled cheese sandwich, adding the cooked caramelized onions and mushrooms to the sandwich. (I put the caramelized onions and mushrooms between the cheeses because the melted cheese on both sides will help keep the onions and mushrooms from falling out while you are eating it.)
5.   Cook the grilled cheese sandwich.
6.   Heat some tomato soup.
7.   Enjoy!















Enjoy, I know I did!

Edit: Based on reader response, I have a couple of suggestions for those of you who do not like mushrooms, or as someone put it, think they are out to kill you.

  1. You could replace the mushrooms with bell pepper
  2. You could leave the mushroom out all together and add a tomato when you cook the grilled cheese
  3. OR, if you like mushrooms, you could choose to add the bell pepper and tomato and make an even tastier grilled cheese





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