Holiday Calendar

National Grilled Cheese Month

Next celebratedThursday, April 1, 2027

An unofficial American food observance held throughout April that celebrates the grilled cheese sandwich.

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Last updated February 26, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEAll of April
OBSERVED INUnited States
CATEGORYFood
SUBCATEGORYCheese
ORIGIN

Historical Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
“Nobody owns it, nobody proclaimed it, and that is rather the point.
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A month for a sandwich younger than the toaster that makes it.

No founding organization or origin record has been documented for National Grilled Cheese Month, and no single person invented the grilled cheese sandwich. The month is a popular, industry-friendly celebration across the United States of a comfort food whose own history is far better documented than the observance built around it.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday
INTRO

The all-American sandwich that is younger than your grandmother

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Here is the first surprise about grilled cheese: it is barely a century old. The sandwich that feels timeless, the one that tastes like being eight years old and home sick, did not exist in any recognizable form until two ordinary inventions arrived together in the 1920s. Cheap factory-sliced bread and cheap factory-made cheese met on a hot griddle, and a national habit was born.

The exact phrase "grilled cheese" is younger still. It first turns up in print on January 20, 1932, in the Los Angeles Times. Read that again: the name is newer than the airplane and the toaster. For most of human history, nobody had asked for one by that name.

National Grilled Cheese Month spends all of April on this short, strange biography. No agency proclaimed the month and no brand owns it, which leaves the whole of April free for the only thing the sandwich ever really asked of anyone: butter the bread, heat the pan, and watch the edges.

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ORIGINS

Grilled Cheese Month history

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 01

Two cheap inventions had to meet first

The grilled cheese could not exist before its ingredients were ordinary. Both arrived in the same short window. In 1916, James L. Kraft received a patent for processing cheese so it resisted spoilage and shipped without refrigeration. A reliable, identical slab of cheese now sat on every grocery shelf in the country.

Bread caught up a decade later. Otto Frederick Rohwedder's slicing-and-wrapping machine sold the first commercially sliced loaf on July 7, 1928, in Chillicothe, Missouri. Uniform slices, a uniform melt: the sandwich was suddenly a thing anyone could make the same way twice.

CHAPTER 02

It started open-faced, in the lean years

The first version was not a sandwich at all. Through the Great Depression, American kitchens broiled a single slice of bread under a blanket of cheese and called it a "cheese dream", a cheap, filling supper for a hard decade. The top slice, the part that makes it a sandwich, came later. The dish we picture today is the closed descendant of that open-faced ancestor.

The Second World War pushed it further into the national diet. U.S. federal-government cookbooks of the era have Navy cooks grilling "American cheese filling sandwiches" by the tray, feeding sailors a hot, shelf-stable meal that processed cheese made possible.

CHAPTER 03

The name arrives late, and sticks

For years the sandwich went by other names while the now-familiar one was still finding its footing. The phrase "grilled cheese" appears in print by the early 1930s but does not become the common, everyday name until the 1960s. Kraft kept feeding the habit: packaged "Kraft De Luxe Process Slices" arrived in 1950, and the individually wrapped Kraft Singles most Americans grew up with reached stores in 1965. By then the open-faced cheese dream was a memory, and the closed, golden, two-slice version was simply what "grilled cheese" meant.

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TIMELINE

Timeline

Processed cheese is patented

James L. Kraft patents a process that lets cheese resist spoilage and ship without refrigeration, putting an identical slab on every grocery shelf.

Sliced bread goes on sale

The first commercially sliced loaf is sold on July 7 in Chillicothe, Missouri, making uniform, repeatable sandwiches possible.

The name appears in print

The phrase "grilled cheese" turns up in the Los Angeles Times on January 20, its earliest known printed use.

The open-faced cheese dream

Depression kitchens broil cheese on a single slice of bread, the cheap, filling ancestor of the closed sandwich.

Navy galleys adopt it

U.S. federal-government cookbooks have Navy cooks grilling "American cheese filling sandwiches" for sailors during World War II.

Kraft Singles arrive

Individually wrapped Kraft Singles reach stores, by which point the closed two-slice grilled cheese is the standard.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Grilled Cheese Month

Appetite

A whole month for a sandwich the country eats more of every year.

The sandwich rides a national appetite that keeps climbing. U.S. per-capita cheese consumption reached an all-time high of 42.3 pounds per person in 2023. A month built around melted cheese is celebrating a habit the country is still leaning into, not a nostalgic one it has left behind.

Access

It made a hot, cheesy meal democratic

Grilled cheese matters because almost anyone could make it. It needed no oven, no skill, and no money: a pan, two slices, a slab of cheese that did not spoil. That is why it spread through Depression kitchens and Navy galleys alike, and why it still reads as the most unpretentious thing on any menu.

Confusion

It clears up the month-versus-day muddle

The observance has a job beyond eating. National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day falls on April 12, a single date that brands and restaurants build promotions around. The month gives the sandwich the rest of April to itself, so the two do not have to share one crowded square on the calendar.

AT A GLANCE

National Grilled Cheese Month at a glance

Observed
All of April, across the United States
Related single day
National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day, April 12
Documented founder
None on record
Official status
Unofficial food observance, not a public holiday
Core ingredient
American and cheddar-family cheeses, the processed-cheese line
Modern sandwich emerged
1920s United States

BY THE NUMBERS

National Grilled Cheese Month by the Numbers

42.3 lbs
US cheese eaten per person, 2023
~16 lbs
US American-type cheese per person
1916
Kraft processed-cheese patent issued
~5M lbs
Kraft cheese bought for WWI troops

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Grilled Cheese Month

It began open-faced, not as a sandwich

The Depression-era "cheese dream" was a single slice of bread under broiled cheese. The second slice, the part that makes it a sandwich, was a later addition.

It is not grilled at all

A grilled cheese is pan- or griddle-fried in butter. The name comes from the flat short-order grill of a diner, not from cooking over flame.

A war helped launch the cheese

Because processed cheese survived without refrigeration, the U.S. government bought roughly 5 million pounds of Kraft's cheese to feed World War I troops, which pushed it into American kitchens.

The name lagged the sandwich by decades

The dish was around long before "grilled cheese" became its common name. The phrase appears in print by the early 1930s but does not settle in as the everyday word until the 1960s.

Sliced bread was the missing piece

Commercially sliced bread did not exist until 1928. Before that, a uniform, repeatable grilled cheese was nearly impossible to make at home.

MYTH VS FACT

Common Misconceptions

The myth

The grilled cheese dates back to ancient Rome.

The truth

People have eaten bread and cheese for millennia, but the modern grilled cheese, processed cheese on factory-sliced bread, is a 20th-century American dish. The Roman version often cited was closer to a spelt-and-ricotta cake than a sandwich.

The myth

It is grilled, like a steak.

The truth

It is pan- or griddle-fried in butter. The name borrows from the flat short-order "grill" of a diner, not from cooking over flame or grates.

The myth

National Grilled Cheese Month and National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day are the same thing.

The truth

They are two observances. The month runs through all of April; National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day is a single date, April 12, that sits inside it.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Grilled Cheese Month

EDITOR'S PICK

Master the low-and-slow griddle

The name says grilled, but the technique is patient griddling. Butter the outsides, set a low flame, and let the bread turn deep gold while the cheese has time to melt all the way through. Rushing it on high heat burns the crust before the center gives.

TRADE

Trade your slices for a real melting cheese

Spend April auditioning what goes between the bread. A sharp cheddar, a creamy Gruyere, or a blend that pulls into strands rewards the effort more than a single slab. The point of a whole month is room to experiment.

MAKE

Make the open-faced ancestor

Honor the original by skipping the top slice entirely. Pile cheese on one piece of bread and run it under the broiler until it bubbles, the way Depression-era kitchens made their cheese dreams. It is the same idea, eighty years earlier.

SAVE

Save April 12 for the sandwich's own day

Mark National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day on the twelfth as the month's peak. Plan the most ambitious version for that date, then spend the surrounding weeks working up to it.

PAIR

Pair it with the soup it was made for

Set out a bowl of tomato soup and dunk without apology. The crisp-bread-and-melted-cheese contrast against a warm, acidic soup is the reason the combination became a lunchroom standard in the first place.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Grilled Cheese Month?

1 / 8

What two inexpensive inventions made the modern grilled cheese possible in the 1920s?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial food observance with no government proclamation behind it. Nothing closes and no one gets the day off; it is a celebratory month, not a public holiday.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

9sources
1primary records
3independently dated
Primary records
USDA Economic Research Service2021
Cheese accounts for largest share of per capita U.S. dairy product consumption
U.S. government data showing cheese is the largest dairy category in per-capita consumption and that availability has roughly doubled since the 1980s; the basis for the American-type cheese figure.
View source
Additional coverage
The Food Timeline
Food history notes: sandwiches (grilled cheese)
A food-history reference documenting that the modern American grilled cheese emerged in the 1920s with affordable sliced bread and American cheese, and that the phrase 'grilled cheese' first appears in print in the Los Angeles Times on January 20, 1932.
View source
Northern Public Radio (WNIJ)2021-06-07
This Week In Illinois History: Krafting Cheese (June 6, 1916)
Documents James L. Kraft's 1916 processed-cheese patent and notes the U.S. government bought about 5 million pounds of his cheese to feed troops during World War I.
View source
IDFA2024-11-26
Spread the News: Butter & Cheese Consumption at Record Highs as U.S. Demand for Dairy Spikes in 2023
Reports, citing USDA data, that U.S. per-capita cheese consumption reached an all-time high of 42.3 pounds per person in 2023.
View source
Tasting Table
The Murky History Behind The Classic Grilled Cheese Sandwich
Food-media history of the sandwich that debunks the ancient-Rome origin claim, noting the Roman dish cited was closer to a spelt-and-ricotta cake, and traces the modern version to 1916 processed cheese and 1920s sliced bread.
View source
Wikipedia
Grilled cheese
Documents the open-faced Depression-era 'cheese dream' and U.S. federal-government cookbooks showing Navy cooks making 'American cheese filling sandwiches' during World War II.
View source
Wikipedia
Otto Frederick Rohwedder
Documents the first commercially sliced bread, sold July 7, 1928, in Chillicothe, Missouri, from Rohwedder's slicing-and-wrapping machine.
View source
Wikipedia
Kraft Singles
Documents packaged Kraft process cheese slices in 1950 and the individually wrapped Kraft Singles reaching stores in 1965.
View source
Adweek
Kraft Singles Grilled Cheese-cense Brings the Smell of Grilled Cheese to Your Home
Shows brand campaigns built around National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day on April 12, evidence that promotions target the single day rather than stewarding the month.
View source
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