French Onion Grilled Cheese {recipe}

Have you ever had this "Duhhhh" moment when you think to yourself 'Why haven't I thought of this earlier?'. Well I had one of those when I saw the recipe for this an amazingly delicious grilled cheese sandwich. It's the perfect combination of sweet and salty, crispy bread and melty cheese. 

Ohhhh my! Just talking about it makes me want to go whip out another batch. 

Plus, like I say in almost all my recipes - it's so easy to put together.

Ingredients
- 5 red onions
- 2 tbsp of butter
- 1/2 lb of thinly sliced Swiss Cheese
- 1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar
- 1/2 cup of red cooking wine
- french baguette
- thyme
- salt and pepper to taste

Cooking Process 
Makes 4 sandwiches

 Chop up the onions roughly, you don't want to dice them as they will cook down and will be very mushy. Melt the butter in a bottom-heavy sauce pan and add the onions. Leave the heat on medium and keep stirring the onions through the cooking process. 

 Cut the bread into 1/4 in thick slices and arrange 2 pieces of cheese on each side. I mean it's grilled cheese after all so you may want to pile on. Also, get the good stuff, something with tang and perfect sweetness - you don't want to ruin this puppy with domestic Swiss. That's just a sin.

Keep stirring the onions and when they start to wilt, turn up the heat just a notch. The goal (which my hubby said I failed to achieve this time, because he cooks the french onion soup in our family and it's absolute french perfection) is to have your onions start caramelizing on high heat. When you start seeing the purple color on the edges of the pan start browning, that's the sugar from onions coming and almost starting to burn. That's when your onions are done. They will cook down in volume a lot. 

Add the balsamic, wine and thyme and keep stirring to let all the liquid evaporate for another 5 minutes. Once the onions don't have anymore liquid (they will be very mushy though), turn the heat off and set aside. 

Spread about 2 tsbp of onions on one side of the bread, add salt and pepper and cover with the other. 

We didn't add any salt into the onions so at this point they are very sweet. Do a taste test and see how much salt you want in them.

Heat up a panini maker or just good ole-fashioned skillet and  spread a little butter on the outside of the sandwich. Heat it up until the cheese is melted and starts sizzling.

Enjoy!