Tomato and cheese panini is one of the best and quickest lunch or dinner ideas ever! You will love it so much that one will never be enough! Lunch doesn’t always mean a complete meal with soup, main dish and side dish.
When you are in hurry and have very limited time to prepare a full course lunch or dinner, there is no better food than paninis! What's more, you never feel bored of eating panini since there are hundreds of options! Although you can go grazy with what you place inside it, I mostly make this classic tomato and cheese panini.
Did I say paninis make perfect lunch or dinner? These are traditionally considered as breakfast in Turkey. Cafes and school canteens serve various paninis and you can see a long panini queues in these places in the mornings. The simple and classic panini made in Turkey contains just kasar cheese, which is the best melting cheese here. If you want a little twist in your panini, then you can add Turkish sujuk, a kind of spicy sausages into it. When you order panini in a Turkish cafe, you will be asked if you want it plain or with sujuk. The plain one has only the cheese.
Some places want to go further and they make tomato and cheese panini. You can still add sujuk into this. Oh yes, you're in heaven then! If you have pickled chili with your panini, you will double your joy! The best drink to pair with a tomato and cheese panini is Turkish Ayran if you’re having it as lunch or dinner, but my choice would be a hot and well brewed black tea in the mornings.
I used classic hamburger buns for this tomato and cheese panini, but you can definitely make it with your favorite bread. Would you like to hear my secret for a perfect panini? Be generous about the butter you spread!
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📖 Recipe
Tomato and Cheese Panini Sandwich
INGREDIENTS
- 2 buns
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 2 slices of kasar or mozzarella
- 1 tomato thinly sliced
- 2 green peppers sliced
- ½ teaspoon dried thyme
- ½ teaspoon chili
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat the panini presser.
- Spread butter on two sides of buns, both inside and outside.
- Place kasar or mozzarella slices in buns.
- Sprinkle thyme and chili over it.
- Place tomato and pepper slices inside and bring both sides together.
- Place them in a panini presser and cook for 4 minutes.
- Serve hot.
NUTRITION
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Dimitrios says
I've tasted better sandwiches in both Turkey and Greece. The problem is I did the recipe with mozzarella and that is a pretty tasteless cheese. If you're going to use mozzarella then add plenty of salt.