Too Late For Delivery? Make A Pizza-Inspired Grilled Cheese

When a craving for pizza hits, it can be severe. That melty cheese, that crispy crust, that sausage! For many, satisfying that craving is just a phone call or online order away. But when you're jonesing for a pepperoni-covered pie late at night and your pizza spot of choice is closed, you might need to get creative using ingredients you have on hand. Fortunately, you can get all your favorite pizza flavors in a top-notch grilled cheese sandwich.

All it takes is a couple of slices of sandwich bread, some pizza or marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, and whatever other toppings you like. Now, you can stuff everything inside the bread slices, butter the outside, and toast in a pan or on a griddle, but why not take it up a notch and put the ingredients on top as well? It's kind of like making a double-decker sandwich. You'll need a toaster oven, air fryer, or just the broiler setting on your oven to pull it off.

For the double-decker version, think of the bread like a pizza crust; spread some sauce on one side and follow with cheese, pepperoni, roasted peppers, or whatever you've chosen for your pizza grilled cheese. Top with the second slice of bread, which you'll also spread with sauce and cheese. It should look like the top of a pizza ready for the oven. At this point, instead of grilling both sides, place the sandwich in your toaster oven, air fryer, or under the broiler and heat until the bread is toasty and the cheese on top is melted and starting to bubble and brown.

Once done, you can cut the sandwich into wedges, squares, or just double-fist the entire thing. By no means do you need to stop at two slices of bread to make this epic midnight craving meal either; if you want three layers or more, just keep building. By making your own pizza grilled cheese, you're not limited by what the pizzeria stocks, but only by what you've got in your fridge. If you feel like getting bougie with it like Martha Stewart, break out your arugula and petite peas. If you have deli ham instead of pepperoni, muenster instead of mozz, or vodka sauce instead of marinara, give them a try.

No bread in the cabinet? No problem. Remember, where there's a will for pizza, there's likely a way. You can stuff pizza ingredients and toppings inside of a pita pocket and warm it in an air fryer or toaster oven; you can also build a pizza on a slice of naan bread, inside a couple of flour tortillas (or better yet, homemade corn tortillas), on canned biscuits, inside French bread, on halved hamburger or hot dog buns, or even on top of saltine crackers if that's what you've got.

If it's your sweet tooth that's crying out for attention in the middle of the night, you can use the same methods to make a dessert-style pie. Instead of pizza sauce, try spreading your sandwich bread with Nutella, peanut butter, or some sweetened ricotta cheese. Toppings can be fresh sliced fruits, nuts, granola, honey, marshmallows (they'll melt deliciously in a toaster oven), caramel, and warm spices like cinnamon and nutmeg. Oh, and don't forget to add a scoop of ice cream on top!