Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup Pizza

Long cold winter days where it’s snowing outside and you’re stuck inside on your couch all day tend to lend themselves to some strange decisions.

I had Monday off due to the holiday and my fiancee, who would normally talk me out of said strange decisions, was out with a girlfriend of hers, leaving me to my own devices.

In other words, I was bored and nothing was stopping me from doing something stupid.

That’s how I wound up combining two of my favorite foodstuffs to make grilled cheese and tomato soup pizza.

The idea, in theory, was simple:

1. I love nothing more than a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup on a winter day.
2. Pizza is by far my favorite foodstuff.
3. I’ve eaten pizzas with everything on them from curry chicken to cheeseburgers and fries to clams, mashed potatoes and bacon, so why not grilled cheese and tomato soup?
4. And I cannot stress this enough, I was bored out of my mind.

So after spending most of a Monday sitting on my couch, I finally headed out to Target to procure what I needed.

Like any good American, I had some slices of Velveeta in my fridge, and I had just made some grilled cheese and tomato soup a couple of weeks ago, so all I really needed to buy was:

1. A pre-baked pizza crust
2. Croutons to make it true to the spirit of a grilled cheese sandwich
3. Ham

Why ham? Because grilled ham and cheese is delicious, I generally prefer my pizza to have some sort of meat on it, and I wanted there to be two different flavors on two different sides so I could compare the two.

To start with, I preheated my oven to 400 degrees and spread the tomato soup concentrate on the crust.

It turns out that tomato soup concentrate has a similar consistency to pizza sauce. I only used half of a standard can of Campbell’s tomato soup because that was more than enough to cover the entire pizza. I punched it up with some garlic salt because tomato soup without added seasoning tastes nothing like pizza sauce and I wanted to at least try to add a little extra flavor.

Next up: The Cheese.

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering how many slices of Velveeta it takes to cover a standard pizza crust, the answer, my friend, is seven. Seven slices of Velveeta to cover a standard pizza crust.

For a finishing flourish, I used ham and garlic butter croutons.

A pizza covered solely with Velveeta and tomato soup concentrate could not, in good faith, be considered a grilled cheese and tomato soup pizza. The croutons added the sandwich element the pizza needed while the ham provided some added flavor as well as something different to try if it didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped.

All the ingredients where they needed to be, I popped it in the oven and, 14 minutes later, it was go time.

And the answer to the question you’ve been dying to know if you’ve gotten this far…

How does grilled cheese and tomato soup pizza taste?

The answer: Not bad! The Velveeta, tomato soup and the croutons came together to make a reasonable facsimile of your standard grilled cheese and tomato soup. My brain, however, was perplexed by the fact that these flavors were being delivered to me on a pizza crust.

The ham side was, to me at least, more flavorful. Nothing against Velveeta, which I love and adore, but I found it to be lacking as a pizza cheese personally. The saltiness of the ham really complimented the Velveeta and the tomato soup concentrate well.

So, would you make grilled cheese and tomato soup pizza again?

Um, probably not.

Grilled cheese and tomato soup pizza was by far not the worst thing I’ve ever whipped up in the kitchen, but some comfort foods are better off not being combined. I feel as though this is one of them.

But, if you’d like to try it in your own kitchen, the recipe is below.

Recipe for grilled cheese and tomato soup pizza:

1 premade pizza crust

8 slices of Velveeta cheese

1/2 can of Campbell’s tomato soup

1 tsp. garlic salt

1 handful of croutons

4 slices of ham (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place premade pizza crust on a greased baking sheet. Spread tomato soup concentrate on thinly. Sprinkle garlic salt evenly so it covers the entire pizza. Place Velveeta slices (and ham if using it) on the pizza. Bake in oven for 12–14 minutes. Let cool and enjoy(?) if that’s your thing. Serves 1–2 people.