Weeknight dinners can be hectic to plan and execute. Add in a picky 5 year old, 2 year old twins who get cranky when hungry and a husband who is used to his Italian mother’s cooking and I often to have get creative to make everyone happy. But that doesn’t mean it has to be complicated! Since we all love Italian food, I enjoy making this Italian Grilled Cheese with Traditional Dipping Sauce. Who doesn’t love Italian and who doesn’t love grilled cheese? Put that together with an amazing, heated dipping sauce — delizioso!
Besides the outstanding taste, you’ll love how easy this dinner (or lunch!) is to make!Start with a good Italian bread – I chose a loaf that had a nice, crispy crust. But you can use any type of bread. The other ingredients include, prosciutto, baby spinach, seasoned ricotta, and, of course, mozzerella.
For the dipping sauce, you’ll want to use a traditional, high quality sauce, like Classico Family Favorites – Traditional. I like to simmer the sauce, so it’s nice and hot for dipping.
Since it’s an easy meal to make, my five year old helped me. I gave him the job of spreading the seasoned ricotta on the bread. The ricotta helps keep it all together and adds a creaminess to this sandwich.
As you can see, my son takes after me and goes right for that bread. He sampled it and gave it a thumbs up.
Assembling the sandwich is easy. Layer each piece of bread, already smeared with ricotta, with mozzerella, prosciutto and then baby spinach.
I like to cook the sandwich open face so that I can layer both sides of the bread – it helps with melting the cheese a bit more evenly, too. This does produce a thick sandwich, so you can always cook it assembled for a bit thinner sandwich.
After the cheese has melted and the bread is nice and browned, I pop it into the oven for 2-3 minutes just to give it the cheese a final ‘melting’ and the bread some extra crunch.
Serve with the Classico Family Favorites Traditional Sauce for dipping – and I think it’s the best grilled cheese ever!
Classico Family Favorites comes in a few varities and it’s really authentic, homemade tasting sauce, which is a must in my house! I stock up at Walmart because the price is great. When you are always making recipes that call for sauce, like me, this is a great one to have on hand in the pantry. You find Classico Family Favorites in the aisle with pasta and sauces.
What recipe would you include Classico Family Favorites sauces into?
Quick Tip: Repurpose that Classico Jar!
This sauce becomes the star of the show when paired with this Italian Grilled Cheese. But aside from the great sauce, the jar it comes in is pretty awesome, too! Simply soak and clean off the labels, wash and repurpose the Classico Jars as beautiful mason jar drinking glasses.
- 8 Italian Bread/Loaf - sliced into desired size
- 1 cup Part Skim Ricotta
- Sliced Part Skim Mozzerella
- 2 cup baby spinach
- 8 slices thin-sliced prosciutto
- Classico Family Favorites Traditional Sauce (for dipping)
- ¼ tsp italian seasoning (for Ricotta)
- Salt & Pepper (for ricotta)
- ¼ c. unsalted butter
- Mix italian seasoning and salt & pepper to taste with Ricotta
- Spread butter onto one side of each of bread.
- Place bread, butter side down & assemble to cook open face.
- Spread Ricotta onto bread.
- Place mozzerella slices on top of ricotta, followed by 1 prosciuto slice on every open sandwich face. Top with baby spinach.
- Cook open face until bread is browned and cheese is melting.
- Finish sandwich off by assembling two halves together and placing in oven, preheated to 350 for 2-3 minutes until cheese is bubbly hot.
Coupon
Save money with this Heinz Classico coupon when you buy two jars of Classico Family Favorites!
#FamilyFavorites #CollectiveBias
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