Cheese is the best food on Earth, and I’ll fight anyone who says different. Mind you, I fight with fondue sticks and I’m not very fast, so you’d probably come out unscathed. Whether it’s melty, sprinkle-y, spready, dippy or crumbly, cheese goes with basically everything. In fact, I’d go so far as to say some foods exist solely as a method of getting cheese from outside my mouth to inside my mouth and are otherwise inedible. I give you 10 foods that are really just vehicles for cheese.

  • Salad: Without cheese, salad is sad. Adding a sprinkling of feta, a shred of Cheddar or a cube of Havarti gives me something to rummage for in a giant bowl of leaves. If I happen to ingest some lettuce in the process, I can tell my doctor I got my greens. Win/win.
  • French Onion Soup: If meals were movies, onions are extras… maybe a saucy cashier with one line in scene 47. Onions are not the hero of the story, even a soup story. Onion soup, French or otherwise, is a vehicle for bread, and more importantly, cheese. Cheese is the George Clooney of the French onion soup feature – rich and delicious.
  • Tacos: Just make it a quesadilla and be done with it already.
  • Crackers: On their own, crackers are a poor excuse for a carb. Dry, bland, sometimes downright aggressive in mouthfeel. But a schmear of triple cream on a water cracker or gorgonzola on a rye crisp and you’ve got yourself something edible… with a cracker on the bottom.
  • Celery: This crunchy crudité is a special kind of heinous on its own – but it’s a natural fit for Cheese Whiz. I know, the Whiz isn’t technically food, but it is cheese-like and drastic times (bare, raw celery on a plate) call for drastic measures.
  • Broccoli: Raw broccoli is like shoving a handful of confetti in your mouth – dry, crumbly and frowned upon at weddings. Cooked broccoli, on the other hand, smells like… well, you know… but can be neutralized with a creamy, cheesy roux.
  • Cauliflower: See broccoli; add offensive teeth squeak.
  • Macaroni: Mac and cheese is one of food’s greatest marriages. Like Jay-Z and Beyonce, when mac and cheese come together it’s music to our mouths. And, just like Bey and Jay, there’s one partner in the union that far outshines the other. Yeah, I said it.
  • Bagels: Unless you have cream cheese on hand, why even pull this chewy, tasteless doughnut out of the bag? You’re meshuga, that’s why.
  • Pretzels: I’m talking the soft warm ones, not the crunchy ones from a bag (see #4 for thoughts on those.) Granted, a fresh pretzel is not just a vehicle for cheese – it’s also a vehicle for beer. Mix cheese and beer together and you’ve created something you’ll need a pretzel to eat. While you might want to slurp beer-cheese dip straight from the bowl, you could draw some stares, gasps and judge-y head shakes and… so I hear.