Make This Cheese Steak Casserole Using All the Cheese
Hello and welcome back to Will It Casserole? , a column in which I take your delicious concepts and reintroduce them as casserole creations. Today we’re making a casserole of the iconic sandwich: cheese steak.
I’m going to get real for a moment: at first I was a little worried about taking my favorite Philadelphia meat / cheese / bread combo. First, while I love the Philadelphia people and their food, they are quite stressful and I didn’t want to make them scream by choosing the wrong cheese. But after some discussion, the Kinja delegates from Philadelphia were unable to agree on whether I should use American, Whiz, or Provolone, so I decided to use all three.
This solution was fine with me, until after searching all three grocery stores nearby, I could not find a damn Cheez Whiz, but only Easy Cheese. (Have I considered trying to pass it off as Whiz? Yes, but Cheez Whiz is hard to find in a spray can and the spray pattern is noticeably different. Some Eagles fans would have noticed and it would be hell to pay.) Finding white American cheese was a lot too. not easy, but bought it. (It would seem that Portland, as a city, does not understand the nuances of various processed cheese products.)
Anyway. Use Cheez Whiz if you can and then make this great cheesy pile of awesome. Plus, if you’re totally against any of these three cheeses, just ditch one or two of them. You are the master of your cheese destiny; just don’t forget to increase the amount of cheeses you choose. Of course, you will need some non-cheese ingredients, namely:
- 2 soft buns with white flakes
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1 pound ribeye
- 1 large onion, chopped into fairly thin crescents
- 1 large bell pepper, cut into strips
- 2 tablespoons canola oil, divided
- salt and pepper
- Cheez Whiz Can
- 10 slices of white American, provolone, or a mixture thereof
Cut the buns into 1/2-inch pieces, melt the butter and toss the bread with the melted butter. Place the cubes in a baking dish – you will notice we are back to using the large un – and fry them under the roast until they begin to take on a light shade.
Add half the canola oil to a large skillet, make it nice and hot over medium to high heat, and add the onions and peppers. Season them with salt and pepper to taste, then cook until they are nice and soft, but not caramelized. Place the melted cheese on top of a layer of bread – a spoonful if using Whiz from a can – and cover up that gorgeous mess with your vegetables.
Then take a look at this beautiful piece of meat.
Dry the skillet, turn up the heat, and add the remaining oil. Using a very sharp knife, slice the meat as thin as possible. Cook the meat quickly in a skillet, chopping it with a spatula as it cooks, if you’re one of the people who thinks this is the best way. (I know it polarizes, and I try to be sensitive to it.) Add another layer of Whiz and add the meat to the cheese bread pile.
Then take the cheese slices and lay them out in a nice patchwork quilt. Surround the cheese blanket with more Whiz, because you probably have a little more left over.
Place the whole thing in a 400-degree oven until the cheeses have completely melted and look like they could stretch from here to the moon.
Serve yourself and others immediately, adding hot peppers and cherry bombs if desired.