It isn’t every day that you’re in San Francisco. But when you are in the Bay Area, eating at the Sidekick Cafe right next to the Cowgirl Creamery cheese shop in the Ferry Building is an absolute must.

Cowgirl Creamery is not just a restaurant though, founders and cowgirls Sue Conley and Peggy Smith first started their artisan cheese manufacturing company at Point Reyes Station just an hour north of SF in 1997. Now selling cheeses and cheesy creations in both Point Reyes and San Francisco, hundreds of cheese-loving customers flock to their brick and mortar locations or to one of their 500+ vendors to sample the magic that Cowgirl Creamery has to offer.

Cowgirl Creamery sells 12 of their own original cheeses alongside dozens of other artisanal cheeses from across the country. From the Fromage Blanc to the Red Hawk to Wagon Wheel, there is something for every cheese lover at Cowgirl Creamery.

Cowgirl Creamery Classic Grilled Cheese Recipe

Our favorite way to use incredible cheese? Two words: grilled cheese.

Because there’s nothing better than sinking your teeth into butter, toasted bread filled with creamy, melted, rich, high-quality cheese. And the girls at Cowgirl know how to do it best. Thankfully they’ve agreed to share their classic grilled cheese recipe from their Cowgirl Creamery Cooks cookbook, so we can show you just how it’s done!

Classic Grilled Cheese Recipe: Tips & Tricks

A few tips from the cowgirls when it comes to making the absolute perfect grilled cheese:

• The best-tasting sandwiches combine three cheeses. For a creamier cheese middle, make one them a soft cheese such as fromage blanc. This acts as a suspension; just as egg whites suspend the heavier particles in a souffle, so does the soft cheese suspend the grated cheese and distribute it more evenly across the bread. The end result is a much creamier filling.
• Find a bread that enhances your sandwiches. At Cowgirl Creamery they use baguettes or leaving, but use your favorite bread. Bread that is slightly stale is better. It’s not as moist and browns better.
• Use a well-0seasoned cast-iron skillet or any large pan with a heavy bottom. Set you pan over medium-low to medium heat. Because you’re cooking with regular butter (don’t use clarified butter), you don’t want a too-hot pan or the butter will burn.
• Don’t skimp on the cheese; use a good amount! It’s okay if the cheese filling spills out onto the hot pan. Those crunchy cheese bits around the edge of the sandwich are always welcome.
• Cooking a grilled cheese takes longer than you’d expect. Count on at least 3 minutes on each side.

And a few tips that we’d like to add after sampling this classic grilled cheese recipe on our own:

• This recipe is extremely flexible, and calls for three different cheeses, 4 oz. each. If there’s one cheese you should go out of your way to incorporate in this recipe, it’s the fromage blanc cheese. The flavor and creaminess is unreal, and even the Cowgirls agree that one of the three cheeses needs to be extra creamy like this one.
• At the Ferry Building, they make their grilled cheese sandwiches with a panini press. If you’d like to mimic the grilled cheese sandwiches as closely as possible and you have a panini press, now’s a great time to dust it off and use it.
• This recipe says to spread the combined cheeses between the slices of bread and then butter the outsides of the bread. This is the OG way to do it, but we found it easier to butter the outside of the bread and then add the three cheeses inside.