Cheddar melt burgers are fairly fun to prepare, if only because they do not require as much effort as exotic burgers. Prep your ground beef as you usually would, slice some cheddar cheese and red onion, then pretend you are making grilled cheese with a burger in there.

Ingredients

• Rye bread (Breadsmith).
• Ground beef (Dakota Beef organic).
• Cheddar cheese (1-year aged Vermont white).
• Red onion, thinly sliced.

Preparation

1. Prep ground beef into relatively thin patties. You may want to mix some spices and Worcestershire sauce into the ground beef.
2. Cook patties as you normally would.
3. Remove cooked patties from pan and replace with slices of rye bread (however many you mean to serve.
4. Place one layer of sliced or shredded cheddar cheese on the rye bread, spread on some onion, and place cooked hamburger patties on top of this.
5. Let this cook for a minute so the cheese can begin melting, then place more onion, cheddar cheese, and the second slice of rye bread on top to complete the cheddar melt.
6. Flip (be careful here) and allow other side to melt.
7. That is it. Your cheddar melt should be ready to go.

Serve with

This burger is a bit higher in fat content than usual (thanks to the extra cheese), so consider using a healthier side dish. A light salad would be nice, or perhaps some avocado oil potato chips.

In this case the cheddar melt was served with seasoned baked potato wedges.

Orange cheddar cheese has become the American rule, not the exception.  There’s a straightforward historical reason for this.

Cheese production was originally a way to preserve milk. You separate the curd from the whey, then process the curd to create whatever kind of cheese you want. Cheese can last quite a bit longer than milk can without refrigeration (and remember, refrigeration is a relatively recent technological achievement), so it was easier to transport.

Making cheese

Cows eat grass, and grass contains beta carotene (which naturally makes the cheese more orange). The more grass a cow eats, the more beta carotene ends up in the milk it produces, and therefore the more orange the cheese. Orange-ish cheese was also associated with being more flavorful (and therefore better).

In the Fall and Winter, cows eat little or no grass. With less beta carotene in their milk, the cheese product ends up being less colorful.

Cheese producers remedied this inconsistency by adding annatto (a natural red food coloring from the seeds of a fruit). If cheddar cheese is orange all year round, then consumers won’t be able to discriminate it based on season.

This practice has persisted into modern society and was gladly incorporated by America’s industrial agriculture. So today, in American grade school cafeterias, cheddar cheese is orange because Kraft says it is orange (and because cheese producers a long time ago recognized that people will buy more orange cheddar cheese simply because it is orange).

Backlash

Recent backlash against orange cheddar cheese has brought natural white and pale yellow cheddar cheese back into demand. Stop by any health food store, co-op, or even the artisan cheese section of your large brick & mortar chain grocery and you will find plenty of natural, non-colored cheddar cheese.

It will still be delicious.