I find cheddar and pepper jack work as well or better on a homemade burger, but Kraft "cheese" slices are still irreplaceable on one thing, which is the grilled cheese sandwich. The ideal grilled cheese is made with American cheese, mass-produced white bread, and lots of butter. You can use better ingredients to try to make it fancier, but hit diminishing returns pretty much immediately.

> The ideal grilled cheese is made with American cheese, mass-produced white bread, and lots of butter.

No, it's not. I don't know what he ideal grilled cheese is, but you can get many, much better, grilled cheeses by not using the first two of those items. Lots of butter is spot on, though.

Alton Brown says mayo is even better. I think he's onto something.

Barf.

As someone who cooks grilled cheese sandwiches for a family twice a week, and likes to experiment, I can tell you that cheddar or gruyere, mass-produced white bread, and lots of mayonnaise, is preferred by some.

And someone else will chime in with something else. I don't know what the 'ideal' grilled cheese sandwich is, but I'm willing to wager a lot of people think it isn't made with American cheese.

> mayonnaise

Never tried that. My ideal is bechamel sauce with cheese on top - shredded for the added surface area when browning. This is based on a typical croque monsieur recipe. It's very easy to make bechamel in about 10 minutes and it keeps for a week or more in the fridge without issues.

A glorious combination I stumbled on was smoked mozzarella, sourdough, and a little bit too much butter. Not what I always want, but quite something on a drizzly day.

I grew up with:

butter 2 slices of whitebread, place cheddar cheese (doesn't matter the type.. nothing aged) and pan fry. It's just enough to toast the bread and melt the cheese. American cheese will have a weird flavor.

>but Kraft "cheese" slices are still irreplaceable on one thing, which is the grilled cheese sandwich.

You savage. You slice your own Velveeta for grilled cheese. In fact, I think that sounds good right now.

Try gruyere on your next grilled cheese, you might be surprised.

What about brie especially when it's ripe and especially when placed below the burger, Gouda (esp well aged gouda that's room temp or higher and sweating) and pretty much anything made by Sartori work amazingly well on burgers. Goat cheese too.

And cultured butters that are very close to cream consistency, like what Benedikt Dairy makes in New Hampshire (I'm sure there are comparable ones all over the USA?) can be even better.

I'd never put processed cheese on a burger...

Agree completely. The flavor of American cheese blends perfectly with pickles, onion, ketchup, and mustard. You can't get that classic cheeseburger flavor without it.

I agree that American "cheese" definitely gives a cheeseburger that classic flavor, but I disagree that there aren't plenty of other cheeses that work on a burger. Cheddar, provolone, gruyere. Hell, even Swiss. It's not the same, obviously, but personally I enjoy it more. YMMV, of course; we're literally talking about personal taste here.

To drive it home, a French chef advocating for American cheese on an ideal cheeseburger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afWK65oOdIw

In the South Bay, try the Bleu Bacon burger at St. John's.

Cheddar's better.

YMMV.

It can work, but you really have to put the heat on just the cheese to get the melty part. You risk overcooking the burger though.

It's all in the timing. And some forethought. The cheese should not be cold when the meat starts to cook. If you can judge the cook of the burger at all, you can judge when to add the cheese: before it's reached the final cook, but after your last flip.