Since the beginning of time, there has been one food combination that’s never let us down: cheese and bread. There’s a reason that grilled cheese is so intertwined in our idea of childhood comfort. The sandwich is deliciously simple, versatile (a.k.a. a blank canvas for your favorite ingredients) and budget-friendly (that is unless you pack it full of expensive ingredients like brie and prosciutto, which I love to do).

Now imagine munching on a grilled cheese combined with mozzarella sticks. The wildest dream or, as the Italians call it, mozzarella in carrozza. Every holiday my Italian-American family yearns for anything fried (hi, arancini), and anything mozzarella-related (caprese salad is at every gathering), so it’s not exactly a stretch to fry anything and everything.