The tiny wax-wrapped cheese is a surprisingly elite toast topping.
Babybel cheese has been a refrigerator constant in my house for years. I often buy multiple bags at a time, knowing full well they’re supposed to be for my kids. Yet, somehow, I end up eating half of them while standing in front of the open refrigerator, deciding whether I’m hungry enough to make a proper meal.
I bought a bag of Babybels specifically to test the Babybel toast trend over our rainy Memorial Day weekend. But while I busied myself painting my bedroom ceiling, my kids built a blanket fort, settled in for an Indiana Jones marathon and ate their way through the entire bag before I could get to them.
Naturally, I went back out and bought another bag, this time with a much better plan for all that cheese.
What is the new way to eat Babybel cheese?
Lately, Babybel has been all over social media—not in the way we’re used to seeing it, but in melted, bubbling form. People are setting the little cheese rounds onto toast, then microwaving, air frying or baking them until they collapse into melty puddles of spreadable cheese.
I made mine in the toaster oven, which felt like the best way to go for this trick. A lot of the videos I’ve seen show people microwaving the Babybel directly onto toast, but I found that the toaster oven melted the cheese while crisping the bread underneath. This made the texture feel more like the center of a grilled cheese sandwich. An air fryer or a regular oven would probably get you to the same place.
The surprising part is not that it’s good (of course it’s good). The surprising part is how natural it feels the second you try it, like Babybel was always supposed to be a melting cheese, and the rest of us simply took a very long time to figure it out.
How does it taste?
The outside turned lightly blistered and melty while the inside stayed soft and a little stretchy in a way that feels much richer than a grocery-store snack cheese has any right to.
I liked it plain, but it also dresses up beautifully, depending on your mood. A little flaky Maldon sea salt and honey would be excellent here. Fig jam makes obvious sense. Fresh fruit, especially sliced pears or strawberries, feels very cheese-board-coded in the best way. You could also lean savory with tomato slices, basil or chili crisp.
Babybel was already creamy, mild and designed to peel apart satisfyingly in your hands. Melting it onto toast simply turns it into the sort of dish people would happily pay $14 for at a restaurant. I love a snack that feels fancier than it is!
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