Homemade Sour Cream & Onion Toastie (Grilled Sandwich)

If you like grilled cheese sandwiches, you might come to the point one day that you’re done with regular cheese sandwiches. If you have heard or even tried some cream cheese grilled sandwiches before, I bet you’re gonna LOVE this one!

Because when you got things between bread in your head…

Recipe Inspiration

I secretly love sour cream and onion chips (Pringles, really!) so when I was crunching my brain to come up with a new recipe, I couldn’t ignore the brilliant idea that the Universe had put into my head. 

And I mean, it makes sense right? Cream CHEESE. That should totally go on a toastie!

So when I was figuring out how to make the perfect sour cream & onion to put on a piece of bread, I discovered that sour cream is actually called french onion. That led me to onion soup and made me think about port wine and fireplaces. So, actually it didn’t really get me to a useful recipe for a toasted sandwich, but I do love all those things! 

Back to the point… Most recipes for sour cream & onion are for homemade chips or dips for chips (and cucumbers for the healthy peeps out there). I didn’t want that. I wanted a toasted sandwich with Sour Cream. 

Cream Cheese = Sour Cream

I knew from earlier experiences that cream cheese works perfectly on toasted bread. Generally, it stays nice and firm even in the toastie maker and it comes out as a delicious creamy, flavorful spread. 

So I figured… What if I just put all the ingredients for the Sour Cream & Onion dip into the cream cheese and just make it myself? 

That’s what I did. And the result? It actually tasted like sour cream and onion!

You can’t go wrong with cream cheese, but I opted for an organic one. I also (accidentally actually) threw out the liquid that had formed on top, so it turned out to be a little dry when I started to mix the onions into it. Luckily I could solve that with a dash of olive oil! (which I would recommend anyways!) 

I bet you could use sour cream for this recipe, too, or light cream cheese if you felt like it. I was also thinking about using an “oat sour cream” to make it vegan, but then I didn’t and I just went all-in with lactose 🙂

& Onion 

The onion part of this recipe is the most important part. No Sour Cream & Onion without onion. That just leaves you with sour cream…

Erhum… 

So, onion. You can go totally bananas with this recipe and use every type of onion or leek that you can think of. I would personally recommend using at least two types of onion and garlic. Don’t forget the garlic. 

You could use fresh garlic and onion, or powdered. Depending on your supply closet and your hunger level. 

Here’s some ideas: 

  • White onion
  • Yellow onion
  • Red onion
  • Shallots
  • Scallions
  • Spring onion
  • Leek
  • Chive
  • Garlic

You can also vary between caramelizing the onions before adding them to the cream cheese. This is particularly nice for yellow onion, leek and garlic. You don’t have to add sugar to the onions if you are going to caramelize them. Just let them cook until they turn brownish. 

I was too impatient for that. 

And like I said, you could use all of the above in powder form or freshly cut. The key is, like I said, just to use TONS of it 🙂 Maybe don’t eat this if you have a date afterwards, hihi. 

Mayonnaise

A lot of the Sour Cream and Onion recipes use mayonnaise. I don’t know if you remember, but Jack HATES mayonnaise. He just won’t eat it. EVER!!!!!!!!

If you do love mayonnaise, you could add a spoonful into the cream cheese mixture or spread it on the bread when you assemble the toastie. 

I personally don’t think it is necessary, but hey, it’ll totally make it much, much creamier!

Ketchup?

Question mark. Yes. I (Eveline) don’t think this recipe actually needs ketchup, but Jack did. So he put ketchup on it, and while the ketchup was on the table… Well, I tried it, too. And, eh yeah, it was nice. 

(IT WAS SUPER DELICIOUS WITH KETCHUP BUT I AM AFRAID TO ADMIT IT BECAUSE I WAS MAKING A WHOLE BIG DRAMA ABOUT THAT IT WASN’T NECESSARY TO PUT KETCHUP ON IT). 

There. I said it. 

Parmesan Cheese

Ok, I know I said cream cheese is the cheese component of this toastie… But something didn’t feel right. I think subconsciously I knew there had to be more cheese in this toastie. So I decided to add Parmesan Cheese 🙂

I used flakes because I love the chunkiness of them. And the grated parmesan was sold out and the whole pieces were too expensive. But I do love the flakes, they make it rustic. 

So, whatever fits your budget, parmesan is pretty key to making this toasted sandwich creammmmmmy. Ohhhh the creaminess! 

Check out the YouTube Video!

Grillin’ Time!

I feel obliged to introduce the butter as an option, but actually we end up always using butter on the outside of the toastie. It just makes the bread a little less dry and even more crispy! So before the sandwich goes onto the grill, put some butter on the bread, or on the grill itself. 

With sour cream toasties you always have to be careful that you don’t overdo the grilling time. While you want to make sure that the bread is crispy, you do want to avoid the cream cheese getting so hot and liquid that it starts running out. 

Runny cheese is good, runny cream cheese is not. 

Let’s Talk About Bread, Baby… 

One way to make sure that your bread gets crispy and your cream cheese soft-but-not-liquidy, is to get fresh bread. Freshly baked bread is usually thinner and doesn’t take as long to grill. 

At least you want to make sure that your bread is not frozen. 

Sourdough bread and gluten free bread might also be tricky, because they tend to be thicker. The thicker the bread, the longer it will need to sit to grill and it might even leave the cream cheese too cold inside! 

This is really an advanced toastie maker recipe! 

We uses a delicious whole-grain bread with seeds on the outside. It was perfect. Crispy. Thick but not too thick. Thin but not too thin. Flavorful, but not too distracting. Neutral, but not boring. 

Pretty Toastie

To make this toastie look extra delicious, I recommend garnishing it with some freshly cut parsley, parmesan flakes and pickles. The pickles were Jack’s idea, and they worked fabulously. It must have been the Sour Cream with Sour Pickles. Just delish. 

We also added chips to it. Which was also completely unnecessary. I mean. Necessary. It had to happen. 

The Meat Version

This toasted sandwich is vegetarian. While it legitimately has two types of cheese, there is no meat in this recipe. 

If you wanted to, though, you could add ham to this toastie. Fresh, thinly sliced ham just sounds perfect for this creamy beauty. It’s like those rolls that you make with ham and cream cheese inside, but then the other way around. 

The Vegan Version

Like I said earlier, I am super curious to try out this recipe with oat sour cream (or soy?) or even coconut yogurt! I don’t have a clue if any of those would work. I tried vegan sour cream once for the salmon toastie, but it got so liquid that it disappeared before the toastie was totally grilled. Such a waste!

You could supplement the parmesan cheese for vegan (grated) cheese. 

The Resources

Our precious grill has been hiding for a few lonely months, but we are just too happy to be using her again! You can find more information about our beautiful friend on our Recommended Gear Page

  • Tefal: Inicio Grill (Awesome for Toasties and All Grilling Needs

For this recipe, we used the grill only. While a toastie maker would also be perfectly fine to use for this toastie, we decided to stick to the grill so that we could double up on the cream cheese spread. 

The toastie maker would have possibly pressed too much of the Sour Cream & Onion spread out of the toastie. And that would be a terrile, terrible waste. 

Another reason for using the grill this time is because of the bread that we used. The toastie press works best with casino bread (you know, the tiny square white slices). We used fresh bread however, and fresh bread doesn’t let itself be put in a mould easily. Grill it was!

Let Us Know What You Think!

Here at the ToastieLab, we love experimenting. That is, Jack and Eveline love to take up every excuse we can to make a toasted sandwich. Do you have any ideas, questions, recommendations, or do you want to share your ToastieLove? Reach out to us!

Print
clock clock icon cutlery cutlery icon flag flag icon folder folder icon instagram instagram icon pinterest pinterest icon print print icon squares squares icon

Homemade Sour Cream & Onion Toastie (Grilled Sandwich)


  • Author: Toastie Lab
  • Prep Time: 5
  • Cook Time: 5
  • Total Time: 10 minutes
  • Yield: 2 1x

Description

If you like grilled cheese sandwiches, you might come to the point one day that you’re done with regular cheese sandwiches. If you have heard or even tried some cream cheese grilled sandwiches before, I bet you’re gonna LOVE this one!


Scale

Ingredients

  • 4 slices of bread
  • 75 grams of cream cheese
  • ½ a yellow onion (chopped super tiny)
  • 1 clove of garlic (chopped super tiny)
  • 2 spring onions (chopped super tiny)
  • Dash of olive oil
  • Dash of salt
  • 1 (2) tablespoons of parmesan
  • Butter and/or mayonnaise
  • Parsley, pepper, pickles and/or chips for garnish

Instructions

  1. Preheat the sandwich press/grill.
  2. Chop up the onion, garlic and spring onions. You could also consider using leek, red onion, shallots, chives, or any other type of onion/leek!). If you want to caramelize the onion first, let them simmer in a frying pan with some oil until they turn brown. You can do this in advance.
  3. Mix the herbs and/or veggies with the sour cream and add some salt. If necessary, you could throw a dash of olive oil in with it if it looks a little dry. 
  4. Add the parmesan cheese to the mixture and mix.  
  5. (Optional) Spread butter on the outsides of the bread, or mayonnaise on the inside.
  6. Spread a thick layer of the Sour Cream & Onion spread onto the bread. Add some fresh prepper or parsley. 
  7. Place one slice of bread on top of the other (butter on the outsides). 
  8. Place the sandwich in the grill or press and let it sit for about 3-5 minutes. 
  9. Depending on the temperature of the grill or press, take the toastie out when it is ready (before the cream cheese starts to run!) 
  10. If you are feeling up for it, serve with freshly cut parsley, pepper, parmesan flakes, chips or pickles. 
  11. Serve with or without ketchup 🙂
  • Category: Homemade
  • Method: Grill
  • Cuisine: Toasted Sandwiches

Keywords: Grilled Sandwich, Toasted Sandwich, Sour Cream, Onion, Homemade, Snack, Comfort Food

Toastie Lab

Toastie Lab is the collective effort of Jack and Eveline. We love making, experimenting with, and eating toasted sandwiches.

Recent Posts