Best Fast Food Grilled Cheese [2026]

Grilled cheese sandwiches are the ultimate comfort food item. But truth be told, making a great grilled cheese sandwich yourself can be a little bit of a hassle. Not to mention that you obviously also need to have all the ingredients first!

Comparison Table

Restaurant	Sandwich Option	Review
Dunkin Donuts	Grilled Cheese Melt	Full Review
Subway	Customizable Grilled Cheese	Full Review
Burger King	Grilled Cheese	Full Review
KFC	Colonel Grilled Cheese	Full Review
Dairy Queen	Secret Menu Grilled Cheese	Full Review
McDonald’s	Secret Menu Grilled Cheese	Full Review
Five Guys	Grilled Cheese	Full Review
Taco Bell	Grilled Cheese Burrito	Full Review
Papa John’s	Grilled Cheese Papadia	Full Review

So today, we will take a look at the best fast food restaurants that offer grilled cheese on their menu. 

Now to be completely honest, many of these restaurants offer grilled cheese sandwiches regionally, as part of their secret menu, or during certain times of the year. So, even if we’ve listed it here today, we cannot guarantee it’s available throughout the globe or even the United States.

Nevertheless, the best places to look at are the most popular ones. They include McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Dairy Queen, Papa John’s, Dunkin Donuts, Subway, and chain stores alike.

Take a look at our favorite options and let us know if we’ve missed any!

What Is Grilled Cheese?

Grilled cheese is one of the best creations that the culinary world has ever seen!

These delicious toasted cheese sandwiches are uber-filling, packed with deliciously rich buttery flavors, and loaded with a creamy stringy melted cheesy. This tasty combination of flavor and texture is perfectly enclosed with buttered slices of bread that are toasted until they become golden brown and crispy.

If you aren’t drooling yet, there must be something worse with your taste buds!

Are There Variations of a Grilled Cheese?

A grilled cheese sandwich is more of a concept than it is a recipe. The only constant is two pieces of bread with a delicious melting cheese filling. The combination is then toasted in butter to give it a crisp texture while the cheese melts.

Nowhere does it specify which type of bread you are allowed (or not allowed) to use and which type of cheese is best.

Generally, you want to choose melting cheeses like Gouda, cheddar, Monterrey Jack, and Elemental. However, many people also play around with different combinations that include a variety of cheese types, like soft cheese, fresh cheese, and non-melting hard cheese.

For the bread, you do traditionally use regular slices of white bread. But today, more and more companies have begun getting creative. They will use slices of sourdough, hamburger buns, or slices of flatbread.

Other very popular additions you can incorporate into your grilled cheese sandwich includes tomatoes, onions, fresh or dried herbs, and even meaty fillings. Again, there really are no rules for these sandwiches, and your imagination is the only limit.

The sandwich is always toasted in either a frying pan, on a griddle pan, or within a special appliance called a sandwich toaster.

Best Fast Food Grilled Cheese [2024]

A grilled cheese sandwich isn’t called one of the all-time best comfort foods for no reason.

But the “comfort” part of it is kind of taken away when you have to spend 20 minutes making it yourself at home.

Think about it: grating the cheese, buttering the bread, assembling and toasting – by the time you can eat it, you may not even be craving it anymore!

While it is a super easy dish to make at home, sometimes all you want to do is sit back, relax, and indulge in a sandwich somebody else made for a change. And who does comfort food better than fast food restaurants?

So today, we will show you some chain restaurants that arguably make some of the best grilled cheese sandwiches to date! These are all super delicious, loaded with texture and flavor, relatively cheap, and most importantly, all easy to find and order.

Full disclosure; some of these sandwiches may be regionally available or only sold at a specific time of the year. It depends massively from place to place and the best way to find it is to check the restaurants’ online menu.

Dunkin Donuts

Who doesn’t love a good combo deal? And Dunkin Donuts almost ALWAYS has a special with their signature grilled cheese sandwich if it’s on their menu. Just think, a toasty melty hot sandwich with a deliciously refreshing iced coffee – what a way to start your day! By no means healthy, but great!

This sandwich isn’t by any means fancy or special, and that’s exactly why millions of customers enjoy it so much.

The Dunkin’ Grilled Cheese Melt is loaded with American and white cheddar cheese between two slices of bread. Once toasted, you’ll be overcome with nostalgia and truly re-discover the meaning of comfort.

Subway

It’s not surprising that a sandwich shop like Subway offers a grilled cheese sandwich. The difference here is that you can customize it to your liking.

If you just want cheese, then just add cheese! But you can also create a hearty meaty meal using their various combo options. 

Burger King

Burger King has quite a few cheesy sandwich options available. But again, it depends on where you are located. Some of the best options are, of course, the classic grilled cheese sandwich, but also their 4-cheese Whopper.

They also offer some regional sandwiches like the Sourdough Philly Cheese King or Whopper Melts Sandwiches.

Now we know neither of these options is traditional grilled cheese sandwiches, but they are hearty, uber cheesy, and will definitely provide a lot of comfort!

KFC

KFC? A grilled cheese sandwich? Surely not? 

But believe it folks! It’s called the Colonel Grilled Cheese and it is packed with crunch! This grilled cheese is simple, but complex at the same time. 

What makes this sandwich unique is the thick meaty crumb-coated chicken breast, loaded with the 11 secret herbs and spices mix.

It’s crunchy, it’s cheesy, and uber-crispy! What more could you want from a sandwich?

Dairy Queen

There are rumors that restaurants have secret menus, and Dairy Queen, surprisingly, is one of them.

If you ask an employee to make a grilled cheese sandwich, it’s said that they will actually make you one. And apparently, they are REALLY good!

Now, we’ve found a couple of versions for this sandwich online, which kind of makes sense considering there isn’t a real recipe for it.

They are all made with Texas Toast slices and some cheese. If the employees don’t grill it for you, just ask them nicely.

McDonald’s

Is there anything that McDonald’s doesn’t serve? This restaurant offers a grilled cheese sandwich as part of its secret menu in some locations.

If you like their hamburger buns and American cheese slices, that’s pretty much exactly what you will be getting, just toasted of course.

The great thing about these grilled cheese sandwiches is that they are small. So, you don’t have to ruin your diet or calorie count with one of these. It’s about 250 calories for a simple serving.

Five Guys

Five Guys are one of the most famous fast-food restaurants, but outside of America they aren’t that well known.

That being said, they are the only fast food restaurant we found that has grilled cheese on most of their menus. Basically, it means that they likely have it as part of their national menu, not only regional. But again, check your local Five Guys menu online.

This sandwich is simply made, but well made. It has a bunch of American-style cheese slices melted on top of a flipped-around sesame seed bun. You can also add some toppings if you’d like.

It’s definitely not a pretty sandwich. But the flavor more than makes up for it, so that doesn’t really matter!

Taco Bell

If you don’t mind a completely different take on a grilled cheese, you may enjoy Taco Bell’s Grilled Cheese Burrito.

This Burrito contains all the traditional burrito ingredients including seasoned beef, rice, a nacho cheese sauce, sour cream, chipotle sauce, and fiesta strips. What makes it even more cheesy and where the “grilled cheese” part comes in is the addition of a three-cheese blend.

As with most of their menu options, you can still add on a ton of ingredients like onions, tomatoes, jalapenos, beans, and MORE CHEESE!

Papa John’s

Papa John’s is one of the largest fast food chain restaurants in the United States, with over 2800 locations that offer dine-in or takeaway meals. You can also find them internationally!

At Papa John’s, they have a variety of sandwich options to choose from depending on where you are located. You can find a simple grilled cheese or order one of their famous Papadias.

These are just grilled cheese sandwiches with meaty fillings. They are super rich, packed with deliciously balanced flavors, and have that sought-after cheese pull everybody craves.

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