This Anko Butter Grilled Cheese made with sweet red bean paste and melty vegan cheese will blow your mind! It’s the perfect sandwich for when you’re craving something sweet and savory!
How to Make Sweet & Savory Grilled Cheese
The Ingredients
- Red bean paste (Anko): I like to use koshian, which is the smooth paste version of anko. However, you can also use tsubuan for a bit more texture or even ogura-an!
- Vegan cheese: I use my homemade melty mozzarella cheese but use your favourite recipe or brand.
- Bread: For this grilled cheese, I love using shokupan (thick Japanese-style bread) because it pairs really well with the anko but again, feel free to use your favourite kind of bread.
- Vegan butter: or margarine.
The Directions
- Spread vegan butter on two slices of bread. Spread red bean paste and then place desired amount of cheese on top. Place the other piece of bread on top. Spread more butter on the piece of bread on top on the outside.
- Heat a pan over low and add in 2 tsp of vegan butter. Once melted, place the sandwich in and cover. Let it cook for about 3-4 minutes or until cheese is melted. Increase the heat and then let it cook for another 30 seconds or until toasted to your liking.
- Reduce the heat back to low and then flip the sandwich. Cover and cook for 2-3 minutes. Increase the heat to medium low and cook for another 30 seconds or until toasted to your liking. Remove from pan and enjoy HOT! 🙂
Tips for making vegan grilled cheese
- LOW N’ SLOW: I find vegan cheeses to take a little longer to melt so I highly recommend melting it a bit prior to adding it to the sandwich OR going really low with the heat and slowly melting it first. Once you notice the cheese begin to melt, increase the temperature to get the outside nice and toasty to your liking.
- Type of vegan cheese: I typically like to go with mozzerella but chedder cheese actually is pretty yummy too!
- Butter one side of the sandwich: This is so that when you flip it, you don’t need to add butter to the pan again since the side flipped has butter on it already.
More Vegan Grilled Cheese Sandwiches to Try:
SAVE IT FOR LATER! ↓
If you recreate this Sweet Red Bean Paste Grilled Cheese recipe let me know how you liked it by leaving a comment and rating below or by tagging me on Instagram @Okonomikitchen, I love seeing all of your tasty recreations!
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Sweet Red Bean Paste Grilled Cheese
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 1 serving 1x
Description
This Anko Butter Grilled Cheese made with sweet red bean paste and melty vegan cheese will blow your mind! It’s the perfect sandwich for when you’re craving something sweet and savory!
Ingredients
- 2 thick slices of your favourite bread (preferably Japanese milk bread/shokupan)
- 1/4 cup sweet red bean paste or ogura-an (68g)
- 3–4 tbsp vegan melty mozzarella cheese (38g // or two slices / shreds of your choice)
- 2 tbsp vegan butter (28g)
Instructions
- Spread butter on the two slices of bread. Spread red bean paste on one slice of bread and then place desired amount of cheese on top. Place the other piece of bread on top (butter facing down). Spread more butter on the outside piece of the bread on top.
- Over load heat and add about a teaspoon of vegan butter. Once melted, place the sandwich onto the pan and then cover with a lid. Let it cook for about 3-4 minutes or until cheese is melted. Increase the heat and then let it cook for another 30 seconds or until toasted to your liking.
- Reduce the heat back to low and then flip the sandwich. Cover with a lid and cook for 2-3 minutes. Increase the heat to medium low and cook for another 30 seconds or until toasted to your liking. Remove from pan, serve and enjoy!
Notes
- Helpful Equipment: pan with cover, turner
- Nutritional Information Disclaimer: Nutrition information is a rough estimate calculated on an online tool (Cronometer).
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Category: breakfast
- Method: stove top
- Cuisine: vegan, japanese
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 serving
- Calories: 605
- Sugar: 7.9g
- Sodium: 1902mg
- Fat: 28.6g
- Saturated Fat: 7.3g
- Unsaturated Fat: 18.5g
- Trans Fat: 0
- Carbohydrates: 70.8g
- Fiber: 6.1g
- Protein: 18.2g
- Cholesterol: 0
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This is pretty special 😅
It’s an interesting combination but it wasn’t really my thing. So I probably won’t make it again but still I’m glad I tried it out & would recommend others to try it out as well 🙂
Also it was super easy in the making so maybe just make one to try it and if you like it you can make more 👍🏻
I made this without vegan cheese (as I didn’t have any, but did have some red bean paste that I needed to use). This is so nice! I only had Warburtons toastie bread and it was really tasty with it. Will try again at some point with the vegan cheese, but was so good without it too. X
We really had no idea what to expect when we tried this, but it was really good. It took grilled cheese in a whole other direction and was a totally new experience for us. We will definitely be making this again. We even made it with Lisa’s melty cheese which was surprisingly good. I say this because I never imagined cheese made out of rice!… but I’ll add more about that in the comments on her cheese recipe =) Thank you for sharing these recipes. Each time I try one, it’s like a whole new world of food is out there for me to experience!
OOH!! Sounds so good!