Best Patty Melt Sandwich

Caramelized onions, melted American cheese & a thick meat patty on rye bread! You will drool gazing at the Chintzy Chef's stop motion & time-lapse footage. And visit my cooking blog for cheap ingredients, recipe text & photos: http://the99centchef.blogspot.com/201...

Ingredients
1/3 pound of ground meat - per hamburger patty. I used ground chicken, but turkey or ground beef is okay.
1 whole onion - small to medium.
2 slices of bread - Normally rye bread is used for a Patty Melt, but you can use any type of bread (or buns) you like.
American cheese - 2 slices. Again, if you have a favorite (like cheddar or Swiss) go ahead and try it out.
1 tablespoon of butter - for toasting bread in the pan.
1 tablespoon of cooking oil - for caramelizing the onions.
Salt and pepper to taste.

Directions
Since caramelizing onions takes the longest, start with that. If you use a larger pan the onions will brown quicker. First slice or roughly chop the onion. Don't worry about the size of the pieces, they will cook down considerably.

Add 1 tablespoon of oil to a medium-hot frying pan. Add chopped onions and stir around for a couple of minutes. Now you can sit back and let them lightly brown. It will take a while but the flavor of sweetened caramelized onion is worth it. You need to still stir around the onions every once and a while, so they don't blacken and burn. This process takes 10 - 15 minutes.

If you are making a few Patty Melts, then you can brown several chopped onions at once -- you may want to do a few onions anyway, as caramelized onions are good on almost any grilled sandwich.) It's also okay to make caramelized onions ahead of time, just store them in the refrigerator until you need them. When onions are done, set aside.

Next, form a meat patty (or patties) that is slightly larger than the bread slice. I got three patties from one pound of ground chicken.

Add one tablespoon of oil to a frying pan, over medium heat. Add patty and season with salt and pepper. Brown each side of the patty, until done. If you are cooking ground poultry then cook it all the way, until juices run clear when pierced with a knife. For ground beef, you can cook it the way you normally like it (medium to well done.)

Now time to put it all together. You may need to clean out your frying pan to start fresh. Add a tablespoon of butter (or your favorite substitute) to a medium heating pan. Coat the bottom of the pan so the butter will coat the bread slice.

Add one slice of bread, a slice of cheese, meat patty then top with caramelized onions and one more cheese slice. Top it all off with the last bread slice.

Your Patty Melt is built and now just brown each side as you would a typical grilled cheese sandwich. It only takes 5 minutes or so. Watch as the cheese melts and mixes with the caramelized onions -- my cheapie Patty Melt is one decadently tasty sammy!