Healthy Grilled Cheese courtesy of Sarah || Linley House

Hello Gang! Sarah here from The LINLEY HOUSE blog!

I’m super-excited that Samantha so graciously let me crash the party today and come hang out with you all! Some of you may know me, but for those who don’t…I’m an Orlando, Florida transplant now living in Northeast Ohio in the middle of Amish Country! I’m a graphic designer by trade but I moonlight as a DIY and craft extraordinaire! (Okay…maybe extraordinaire is a little dramatic!) but…I love posting about everything from DIY to dinner-parties!

I recently started a NEW series over at The LINLEY HOUSE! There has been a pretty dramatic shift in our home the last few weeks…I am, like SO many others, on a weight loss journey! For those of you who have gone through this then you know, (and I am just learning) that it impacts almost every area of your life!

So…back to the NEW series and why I am here today! The series is called the Great Spring Slim-Down and it is my collection of “Healthy” recipes that I am discovering/creating while trying to shed over 50+ lbs from my 5 foot 4 inch frame!

So, in other news…did you all know that today is National Grilled Cheese day? Yep! …and I don’t know about you but grilled cheese is one of my all-time favorites! (Not, however an all-time favorite of my waistline!) BUT, today I am going to share with you an amazing “Healthy” Grilled Cheese Recipe that also happens to be super easy!

This recipe is based off of one of my favorite meals at Panera Bread, the Tomato and Mozzarella Panini – yummy sandwich but weighing in at 740 calories for the sandwich alone is something that I just can’t do anymore! So, I came up with this…

To make this at home you will need!

2 slices of bread – I like the 35 Calorie Light Multigrain Bread!

2 tablespoons of spaghetti sauce

2-3 slices of tomato

2 wedges of Laughing Cow Creamy Swiss Cheese

Fresh basil leaves

I’ll spare you the “tutorial” of how to make grilled cheese but I will say that I spread the cheese on one piece of bread and the sauce on the other with the tomato and basil in the middle…

If you have not discovered the laughing cow spreadable cheese wedges you DO NOT know what you are missing! The come in regular and “light” – The regular wedges are 50 calories per wedge and the light are only 35! When you think about the fact that there are 70 calories in one little piece of provolone cheese you are getting a huge amount of bang for your caloric buck with these little guys!

Here is a little food for thought! Both of these are 70 calories! Yikes...

Okay, enough of my plug for Laughing Cow cheese!

Let’s see how the numbers look for our sandwich!

Bread (2 slices) – 70 calories

Pasta Sauce – 11 calories

Creamy Swiss – 100 Calories (or just 70 if you use the light wedges)

Tomato – 15 calories

Fresh Basil – 1 tiny little calorie

If my math is right you could eat over THREE of these sandwiches for the same amount of calories in ONE of the Panera version! (Not that you should do that!) But you get the idea…

I do hope that you will try this at home…why not tonight? With this version you can enjoy all the yummy, gooey-goodness of National Grilled Cheese Day minus the guilt!

If you’d like to keep in touch and see all of the recipes in the series as they are released hop on over to the blog! Make sure to look for this logo…