Caramelized Onion & Mushroom Grilled Cheese with Spiced Sweet Potato Fries

Grilled cheese is not just for kids - and this "grown up grilled cheese" is not just for adults either - as long as your kids like onions and mushrooms. I love caramelized onions - if I'm at a restaurant and I see an item that has "caramelized onions"...chances are, I will order it. The great thing is, you can easily make them at home to add to any meal.

 This was honestly just a quick lunch I threw together with ingredients on hand but I thought it was blog worthy because it ended up being delicious so I wanted to share it with you.  It was great paired with a side of my favorite spiced sweet potato fries, which you can find the recipe for here.  I didn't have any fresh rosemary on hand so I substituted chives on the fries and they were still very tasty.  

"Grown Up Grilled Cheese" - with Caramelized Onions & Mushrooms

Makes 2 Sandwiches

Ingredients: 

4 slices of whole grain bread (or other preferred variety) 

About 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1/2 medium onion, sliced

3-4 mushrooms, sliced

2 Tbs. butter 

Pinch of brown sugar 

Pinch of salt 

1/8 tsp. ground dried mustard

1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

Directions:

Heat a large pan on medium high heat and add 1 tbsp. of the butter until the butter is melted. Add the onion slices and stir to coat the onions with the butter. Spread the onions out evenly over the pan and let cook, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to medium or medium low to prevent the onions from burning or drying out. After 10 minutes, sprinkle the salt & brown sugar over the onions to help with the caramelization process. Continue to cook and scrape the pan until onions are a rich brown color.  This may take about 20 minutes or more.  Add the remaining spices to the onions and mix well.

Meanwhile cook the mushrooms in a pan with 1 tsp. of butter until browned.  Once onions and mushrooms are cooked, remove from pans.  Prepare the sandwiches by spreading about ¼ cup of shredded cheese on two of the slices of bread.  Top with the caramelized onions and mushrooms divided between the two pieces of bread and top with other slice of bread. Melt the remaining 1 Tbsp. of butter in the pan used for the caramelized onions and grill the sandwiches until golden brown on each side (adding more butter to the pan when flipping the sandwich as needed). 

Serve with sweet potato fries and enjoy!