“Cake salé” is a catch-all term for the humble savory loaves popular among French home cooks. This Alsace-inspired variation, studded with bacon, Gruyère, and caramelized onion, tastes great straight from the oven, but it’s even better reheated (cooling it completely tenderizes the crumb). Store any leftovers in the refrigerator. 

Featured in “Is This Humble Dish France’s Best-Kept Culinary Secret?” by Emily Monaco.

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These old school Polish pancakes are lighter, fluffier, and cheesier than the batter-based standard. The batter—really more of a dough made from cottage cheese and egg barely bound together with flour—is sliced into rounds and baked, rather than cooked in a pan. Be careful not to overwork it when adding flour; the pancakes should be fall-apart tender.

Featured in: “Old School Pancakes So Good They Don’t Need a Pan.”

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Since the early 1800s, the tiny, beloved restaurant La Puerta Falsa in Bogotá has been serving traditional homestyle Colombian fare, with a short menu featuring tamales, ajiaco, and—the one that stayed with me the most—changua. A milky soup bobbing with jammy eggs, hunks of bread, and pungent alliums, changua is a belly-warming breakfast with an interesting amalgamation of textures and flavors. This changua recipe is adapted from the version served at La Puerta Falsa.

For the bread, almojábanas and pandebono (two Colombian varieties made with cheese), as well as calados (a type of stale bread), are popular choices—look for them at a Colombian bakery, or online. Day-old crusty country loaves or baguettes are also typical.

For the cheese, Bogotana chef Alejandra Cubillos González recommends queso Colombiano or queso campesino. When she can’t find these, she sometimes substitutes cheese curds. Or, use halloumi or low-moisture mozzarella, as Colombiana cookbook author Mariana Velasquez suggests. Though adding cheese—as Puerta Falsa does—is common, the dish is just as often made without it, depending on region and personal preference.

Featured in, “This Milky, Eggy, Cheesy Soup Comes to the Rescue on Chilly Mornings,” by Megan Zhang.

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It’s always Snacky Hour somewhere, at least according to snack-obsessed SAVEUR senior editor Ellen Fort. Follow along as she discovers the best bites that fall outside the confines of breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Savory, salty, spicy, sweet, sour: everything’s fair game during Snacky Hour.

Growing up, I was lucky to be the child of parents with friends who loved my twin sister and me like their own. Dinner parties, cocktail hours, and weekends with friends were some of our favorite times to impress grown-ups with our comedy routines, fashion shows, and general antics. They tolerated all this gracefully and left their own impressions by including us in the festivities. As is the custom in the South, almost every group has its own signature delicacy, whether it was Molly’s homemade mustard, Diana’s toffee, or Sybil’s Bread. This recipe is one of those signature treats, with exotic ingredients that my vegetarian, natural grocery-loving mother usually did not have on hand: Velveeta, liquid smoke, and sausage being key ingredients. I only knew this as “the thing Toni makes” until recently when I aspired to include it in Snacky Hour. Only then did I find out it had a name and an origin: Hanky pankys, an appetizer hailing from Cincinnati. All of this makes sense now—Toni grew up in Ohio—but I’ll always remember eating it on a screen porch in Tennessee with the clink of ice and grown-ups laughing in the background.

Note: There are no substitutions allowed for any part of this hanky panky recipe, particularly when it comes to Velveeta. We’re partial to Pepperidge Farms’ Dark Pump party bread, but S. Rosen’s is a great option too.

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Chefs John Bates and Brandon Martinez of Austin, Texas’s now shuttered Noble Sandwich Co. added Sriracha to their beloved chunky pimento cheese, upping the spice factor and helping to offset the creaminess of the rich cheddar spread. We still like to slather it on everything, from sandwiches to Romaine spears. Here are our top picks for Sriracha sauces from the classic staples to regional recipes.

Our 50 Best Sandwiches from Around the World

From the New Orleans oyster loaf to Vietnam’s banh mi, our best sandwich recipes showcase a world of innovation between two slices of bread.

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Ravioli nudi are an unexpected surprise: stripped-down ravioli, hence “naked” by name. The only tricky part to this simple recipe is using the least amount of flour needed to keep the dumplings intact as they cook. Avoid using pre-grated parmesan cheese which often contains added starches and preservatives.

Featured in: Our Best Recipes of All Time

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Gluten and dairy intolerances aside, it’s hard to argue with the comforting, oozy goodness of melted cheese between—or atop!—slices of crunchy, griddled, fried, or toasted bread. Here are some of our favorite grilled cheese recipes from around the world.

Croûte au Fromage

The type of cheese, bread, and wine used to assemble the most basic version of this common Swiss comfort food, which is effectively cheesy toast, can vary depending on which region you happen to be enjoying it in. Photographer Simon Bajada, who visited and interviewed several Alpine cheesemakers, uses a splash of Fendant—a crisp and mineral white wine from Valais—in his recipe, but feel free to swap in any dry white wine. Get the recipe >

Monte Cristo Sandwich

People have strong opinions about the Monte Cristo sandwich, a double-decker of Swiss cheese, ham, and chicken or turkey, which is battered, fried, dusted with confectioners sugar, and served with a side of tart red jelly. Some consider it a marvel; others, an absurdity. Divisiveness aside, this perfect Monte Cristo recipe is an impressive one. Get the recipe >

The Original Reuben Sandwich

Pressing down on this sandwich with a spatula while it toasts in the pan is the key to achieving the outer crispness and well-melted cheese we look for in this classic deli sandwich. Get the recipe >

Patty Melt

Some say that the patty melt—a griddled sandwich of ground beef, caramelized onions, cheese, and rye bread—isn’t technically a burger, because it has no bun. We love it just the same. Get the recipe >

The Ultimate Grilled Cheese Sandwich

The secret to making a perfect grilled cheese sandwich is cooking it over low heat, which brings out the subtle flavors of a cheese. Nutty and complex Comté, made in the Jura region of the French Alps, is particularly well suited to grilling. Get the recipe >

Fully Loaded Turkish Grilled Cheese Sandwich (Kumru)

This specialty of Çesme, a small beach town in Turkey, is one of the world’s great grilled cheese sandwiches. The cheese itself is grilled before getting slipped into toasted bread with raw tomato and optional (but highly recommended) toppings of griddled sausage and pickled cucumbers and chiles. Get the recipe >

Croque Madame

The egg-topped counterpart to France’s ham-and-cheese-stuffed croque monsieur is worth the extra step. Get the recipe >

Tuna Melt Sandwich

The diner classic is easy to master with a few key ingredients—and a generous helping of cheese. Get the recipe >

Waffle Sandwiches with Cecina, Avocado, and Arugula

This all-day-appropriate sandwich was born out of the staff meal at Mokonuts in Paris. Crisp and airy leftover waffles are griddled around cecina (a smoky cured beef from Spain), melty cheese, arugula, and avocado. Get the recipe >

Medianoche Sandwich

A medianoche (literally “middle of the night”) is the kind of sandwich you eat after hours of partying in Miami’s Cuban dance clubs. With roast pork, ham, Swiss cheese, and pickles, it’s almost identical to a Cuban sandwich, save for the sweet and eggy bread. Get the recipe >

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Canned tuna is an often overlooked, extremely versatile delight. If you prefer to use the water-packed version for this classic tuna melt recipe, drain off the liquid before mixing and increase the amount of mayonnaise called for to half a cup.

This recipe originally ran alongside Colman Andrews’ 2003 article, “Greater Tuna.”

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The secret to making a perfect grilled cheese sandwich is cooking it over low heat, which brings out the subtle flavors of a cheese. Nutty and complex Comté, made in the Jura region of the French Alps, is great for grilling; if you can’t find it, Gruyère is a suitable substitute. Slathering the bread liberally with butter helps the bread crisp evenly in the pan.

This recipe first ran alongside Cara De Silva’s 2009 article, “The Real Thing.”

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From schnitzel and katsu to chicken Kiev, breaded and pan-fried cutlets abound throughout the world. Retro chicken cordon bleu—stuffed with melty Alpine cheese and ham—is one of the more lavish of the bunch, and while origin stories set the dish’s roots deep in the Swiss Alps, its popularity spread widely through the 20th century, so much so that subpar versions became the stuff of American TV dinners for decades. In Paris these days, both fresh and frozen cordon bleu is a convenient comfort, readily available from casual restaurants, neighborhood charcuteries, and even the frozen food emporium, Picard.

At Pigalle’s hip and elegant Restaurant Rochechouart, Naples-born chef de cuisine Luigi Di Giovanni serves his own zesty and elegant take on chicken cordon bleu. “It’s a French classic—comforting and simple—that immediately brings us back to our childhood.” Layered with Comté and jambon de Paris, paired with cornichon-studded sauce gribiche, and finished with sumac and lemon zest that brighten the rich and salty cutlets, Di Giovanni’s recipe is at once modern and familiar. 

Jambon de Paris is similar to the unsweetened deli-style ham available throughout the States. Comté—a firm, mountain-style melting cheese from the Jura—is nutty, fruity, and complex. Look for the exceptional Marcel Petite brand in U.S. cheese shops and specialty markets. (If you can’t find Comté, Gruyère is a similar and suitable substitute.) At Rochechouart, Di Giovanni pairs the cutlets with a simple fresh salad, but for a heartier meal, he suggests adding an extra green vegetable like broccoli, green beans, or snow peas, or a starchy side such as sautéed potatoes or fries. 

And for busy home cooks drawn to the appeal of a freezer version? “All of it can be prepared ahead of time, for those who don’t have much time to spend in the kitchen,” he explains. Prepare the cutlets through step two, then freeze on a baking sheet in a single layer. If cooking the cordon bleu out of the freezer, adjust the cook temp to medium-low and increase the time on the stove to 20 to 25 minutes.

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