With its fluffy interior and crisp exterior, focaccia is best served the day it's made. After 24 hours, what was once a soft and airy loaf has turned into something dry and dense. The brittle bubbles and sharp edges have lost all their characteristic stamp and characteristic crunch. It's hard to imagine that the focaccia you couldn't stop eating yesterday is the same stale bread that is on your counter today.
Over the months and months the Test Kitchen was very much in development Big and bubbly focaccia (Our Recipe of the Year 2025!), I ate more than my fair share of focaccia – and found myself with a lot of leftovers. Sandwiches were a natural solution, but I was still faced with the downside of old dry-day focaccia: the crust had become hard and tough, making it hard to bite into, and the inner crumb dried out. But thankfully, I found a solution that makes any focaccia sandwich – no matter how old the bread – a real winner: I started turning leftover focaccia. inside out.
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne
Making a grilled cheese (or any other kind of grilled sandwich) with this technique breathes new life into your old bread. Making a grilled cheese (or any other kind of grilled sandwich) with this technique breathes new life into your old bread. The hard exterior of the bread is softened by the sandwich's fillings, and the once-dense interior crumb, once slathered in butter (or mayo) and exposed to heat, transforms into a crispy shell. And you won't be tearing the roof of your mouth off on an extra toasted piece of crispy exterior after that piece has been tucked inside.
Assembly for the ultimate grilled cheese couldn't be easier. Start by using a serrated knife to cut the remaining focaccia into the size of the sandwich you want. Then cut the piece horizontally to create the top and bottom halves. Turn the focaccia inside out so that the inside crumbs are facing out – these will become the top and bottom surfaces of your pan-fried cheese. Take the top half of the focaccia and spread a thin layer of mayonnaise or softened butter on the crumb side (the side that was originally the inside of the focaccia), then place it mayonnaise side up. DOWN in a preheated non-stick pan over medium heat. Add your cheese to the top surface of the focaccia. (I've found that sprinkling grated cheese evenly over the focaccia in the pan, then topping with shredded cheese results in the best cheese distribution.) Now it's time to add any non-cheese ingredients too – diced tomatoes , avocado, spinach, etc. – collect everything your heart desires!
For the second half of the focaccia, spread a thin layer of mayonnaise or softened butter on the crumb side and place on the mayonnaise side. OVER top half covered with cheese. Press the sandwich down with a spatula and cook until the bottom layer of bread is golden brown. Carefully turn the sandwich over, pressing it down again, and cover the pan with a lid. Continue cooking until the second side is golden and the cheese is completely melted. Remove it from the pan, let it cool a little and cut it into slices to serve.
Be sure to keep the medium heat low to medium and keep it covered; Cooking the sandwich on low ensures that everything will be melted. Because the sandwich can get quite long when you're building it, don't be afraid to flatten the sandwich firmly with a spatula while cooking, so you're left with a sandwich you can fit in your mouth.
One last tip: If you're making a grilled cheese from what was a corner piece of focaccia, rotate the cut pieces of focaccia horizontally so that the same corners are on opposite sides. Sometimes the corners of the 9″ square baked focaccia will be a little less long/steeper, so I found it best when testing the grilled cheese to rotate them so that a slanted corner pairs with a inner angle raised higher.
I used to think day-old focaccia was just a shadow of its former self, but turning it inside out for a grilled sandwich is a simple trick that turns meager leftovers into delicious creations that celebrate every bite of end of bread First, you will need some focaccia – hours this video to learn all the best tips!
Cover photo by Patrick Marinello; food styling by Yekaterina Boystova.
