Cheesy Grits

Cheese grits that are still soft at noon. The looser water ratio a thermos needs, how to whisk the lumps out, and why the grits bag needs a label check.

Makes

3 lunches

Hands on

15 min

Start to finish

30 min

Keeps

3 days in the fridge, where they set solid. Loosen with milk when you reheat.

• 1 cupgritsLook for a gluten free mark on the bag. Some large brands say outright that they cannot guarantee their corn, because it is grown and stored alongside wheat.
• 4 1/2 cupswaterLooser than the ratio on the bag, because they keep thickening in a sealed thermos for four hours.
• 1 teaspoonsalt
• 2 tablespoonsbutter
• 1 cupsharp cheddar, grated
• 1/4 cupmilkFor loosening at the end.

1. Fill the thermos with boiling water and cap it.
2. Bring the water and salt to a boil in a heavy pot.
3. Pour the grits in a thin stream with one hand while whisking with the other. Do not tip the cup in all at once.
4. Turn the heat low and cook, whisking every couple of minutes and scraping the corners of the pot, until soft. Twenty minutes for stone ground, five for quick.
5. Off the heat, stir in the butter, then the cheese, then the milk. They should pour off the spoon rather than mound on it.
6. Empty the thermos and spoon the grits in steaming, up to a half inch below the rim.

1. They will be far thicker at noon than they were at seven. That is the whole reason they go in loose enough to pour.
2. Use a wide mouth thermos, which matters more here than with anything else. Set grits grip the sides of a narrow one and a school spoon cannot reach them.
3. Salt them a little harder than tastes right on the stove. Grits go flat as they cool, and a lunch out of a thermos is always eaten cooler than it was cooked.
4. Bacon and anything else crisp goes in a separate container. In with the grits it turns to a soft strip within the hour.

• There are lumps through it. The grits went into the water too fast, or the whisking stopped early.
• It comes home as a solid puck. Too little water went in, and grits keep drinking liquid inside a sealed thermos.
• It tastes scorched. The bottom of the pot caught, which happens on low heat unless the whisk reaches into the corners.

Grits are ground corn, so the food itself has no gluten, but the bag is still worth reading. Corn for grits is often grown, stored, milled and packed on equipment shared with wheat, and some major brands state on the package that they cannot call the product gluten free for that reason. Buy a bag marked gluten free or certified gluten free. Nothing else here needs checking. Butter, milk and block cheddar carry no wheat.