11 Best Food Truck-Approved Cheesesteak Rules To Follow

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

You'd never guess it from the outside, but food trucks have a set of unspoken rules that most customers don't know. The cooking line is a sacred space for the chefs who run it, creating delicious dishes that customers will remember for weeks. This is where the magic happens, and while it looks different to your home kitchen, that doesn't mean you can't learn from the wise ways of food truck chefs. There's perhaps no better comfort food that thrives in such a place than cheesesteaks. One of my first jobs in the food industry was in a cheesesteak food truck, and it's now one of the best in New York State. And it wouldn't have gained such a drool-worthy reputation without trade secrets! 

A cheesesteak is an iconic Philly-inspired sandwich that's easily brought to life with a few simple tricks that you can use at home. It might seem intimidating, but fear not: Cheesesteaks are as good as their ingredients and cooking methods, both of which happen to be ingrained in my memory. I was lucky enough to be privy to the secrets of the cheesesteak biz after making thousands, and now, I'm sharing those secrets with you. 

As far as I'm concerned, there's only one type of roll to rule them all. The pairing of bread and meat must be an unparalleled match, and Amoroso answered that calling. These rolls are hearth-baked, which sets them apart from the typical mass-produced rolls you'd see in a mediocre cheesesteak shop. Amoroso's baking method creates a roll that's dense but not heavy, with an interior that's soft but thick enough to soak up all those meat juices. The outside is perfectly flaky and the roll is squeezable, but still strong enough to hold all the toppings that make up the works. In short? It's the perfect roll for a hefty cheesesteak. 

These came in massive bulk packages for the food truck where I worked, and trust me when I say, the second you opened the box, you could already smell the carby goodness of this bread. The challenge for home cooks is finding any, since it's not sold in stores. The easiest solution is to look online to order some of Amoroso's Club Rolls, which are a suitable alternative. Amoroso rolls are a must, and they serve as the foundation for the makings of a perfect cheesesteak. 

The texture of a cheesesteak is everything. The last thing anyone wants to do is bite into a delicious, soft roll, and down into a piece of chewy steak. Many restaurants opt for steak slices, but this isn't a true food truck-style cheesesteak. What you're looking for here are pieces that are small enough for one bite, with a tender texture and tons of flavor. This is challenging to achieve with thick chunks of steak. We need steak that's thinner, can be cooked to well-done without getting tough and chewy, and has enough surface area to soak up all that seasoning.

There are a lot of opinions on the best meat to use for a cheesesteak, but In the food truck we used sliced top round, which is a good, high-quality meat. It's thin enough that it can be chopped into bite-sized pieces, creating tons of nooks and crannies for seasoning and melted cheese. It also holds up well to being steamed, which is a necessary step to add moisture and bring all the flavors of the cheesesteak together.

To create this at home, you could take the most convenient route and use Steak-umm Sliced Steak, which is thin-sliced beef. Or, you could go the extra mile and buy a pound of top round, pop it into the freezer for 20 minutes, and thinly slice it yourself. This is guaranteed to give you razor-thin slices, with the added benefit of cooking the steak from frozen, which gives you time to chop the meat on the griddle before it's fully defrosted. 

Just like a hibachi chef has their grill tools, food truck chefs also have theirs. If you've ever watched a cheesesteak being made, you've likely noticed that they cook with two spatulas. One is actually a bench scraper, and it's what we use to give the steak its chopped texture. The other spatula should be long and wide enough to flip roughly six to eight inches of meat at once. To use these in tandem, lay your (frozen) steak slices on the grill, and immediately begin cutting these slices with the bench scraper. As heat from the flat-top thaws the beef, you can chop the meat into smaller pieces. Then, use your long spatula to flip the meat in order to cook every piece evenly. It's a rhythm you'll get used to the more times you do it! 

If you haven't guessed already, a flat cooking surface is absolutely necessary to cook sliced steak like this. It's nearly impossible to replicate this process in a pan, especially when the size and shape of the pan might create an uneven cooking surface. However, your flat-top grill doesn't need to be fancy — it just needs to work. It's not hard to find a stainless steel griddle cover like this Sizzle-Q Little Griddle for less than $100. 

There are some instances where steam is more of a hindrance in cooking than helpful. Thankfully, cooking cheesesteaks is not one of them! Steam does several things which improve the overall flavor of a cheesesteak. For one, it keeps the cooking environment moist, which counteracts any dryness from direct contact with the grill. As steam rises up from the grill's surface, it also encourages even cooking. The combination of these two things ensures that when it's time to add the cheese, everything is perfectly melted around a moist interior.

The best way to create steam is with a squirt bottle. This, filled with some water and with good aim, creates a perfectly moist environment for optimal cooking. One thing to be wary of, though, is how much water you're using on the grill. Too much, and it can leach into the bread and make it soggy, but too little, and you won't have enough steam. Start with one spritz around the meat, and add more if necessary. No one wants a soggy bun or waterlogged steak! 

Heat domes sound far more fancier than they are. A heat dome creates an environment that traps the steam we've created with a little water, acting like an oven. It might seem like overkill, but it's a great trick for keeping everything moist and cheesy. It's easy enough to create with a metal bowl, so you don't need any fancy equipment.

When you eat a cheesesteak, the juices from the steak mix with the water that's released from grilled vegetables. This mixes with the cheese, creating a natural sauce that should be dripping out of the tail end of your sandwich. This is where a heat dome comes in, because all that extra steam locks in that moisture.

A word of caution: These heat domes get very hot. The best way to handle them is with a spatula and tongs. You can slide the spatula underneath the edge of the metal bowl, and then take your tongs and carefully lift it. It's best to place the bowl right-side-up so that it's easy to grab with the tongs if you need it again. Take it from someone who's had many grill burns — you don't want to touch this with your bare hands!

Believe it or not, there's a method to chopping steak. The good news is that it's not complicated and it's actually relatively instinctive. Once your frozen, sliced steak hits the hot grill, it's time to get shreddin'. You can use your bench scraper to cut the meat apart, while using the spatula in your non-dominant hand to hold the meat in place. You should be chopping steak the entire time it's thawing. When you can barely see any pink, start chopping any larger bits, flipping to ensure even cooking. The best way to do this is to think of your bench scraper and spatula as extensions of yourself. If you need to, repeat a mantra like, "I am the terminator of steak," if it helps motivate you to get in there and mince. 

While you're chopping, pause and take a break to season. This may or may not blow your mind, but the only seasonings you'll ever need for a good cheesesteak are salt and pepper. That's it. Don't be afraid to season liberally! You'll know you've hit peak texture when you toss the steak and it cascades off your spatula like a waterfall of meaty goodness. You don't want pieces that are so small they get lost with the toppings, but they should be a solid one-bite-size. For measurement's sake, try to have pieces no longer than one inch, and no less than ½ inch. The goal is to create as pleasant an eating experience as possible, making each mouthful a clean bite. 

Sorry, processed cheese haters, but there's only one "right" cheese for a cheesesteak. After all, the cheese is so important that it's part of the name of this sandwich. Many brands have tried and many have failed to create a replica of Cheez Whiz. The product itself is unsuspecting and underwhelming, until it meets a sandwich that screams for its gooey, salty, almost-cheddar-like flavor. If I'm being honest, seeing a steam table pan full of this yellow imitation of cheese originally did nothing for me. I was a skeptic just like many others who firmly believe in "real" cheese. Thank God the Whiz rocked my world after I tried it, because I will never order or make a cheesesteak without it again.

Cheez Whiz works because, while its actual cheese content is next to nothing, it contains emulsifiers like sodium citrate — additives that give the cheese product its creamy, milky texture. It has an unnaturally long shelf-life as well, making it ideal for storage on a food truck and in a restaurant setting. My best advice? Forget all about how real (or not) this cheese is, and just appreciate the way it coats every nook and cranny of a cheesesteak. As an extra tip, heat your Cheez Whiz up prior to using it, and it'll be a lot easier to ladle over your meat and toppings. If the Whiz is genuinely off-limits, American cheese is the next best thing, and provolone is another great melting cheese.

When it comes to cheesesteaks, I don't make the rules. I only follow them. While some like to put ungodly things on top of their sandwiches like Lehigh Valley cheesesteak with its tomato sauce, typical toppings usually include peppers, mushrooms, and onions — and some people pay careful attention to the onions they add to their cheesesteak. Combining all of these toppings is affectionately called "the works." Some push their cheesesteak limits and add lettuce and tomato as cold toppings, which is apparently acceptable in civilized society. The cold toppings are easy: Lettuce should always be shredded, and tomatoes can be sliced or medium-diced. 

Hot toppings, however, should never be done by halves. Just as much effort should be put into cooking these as for the steak in the sandwich. On the food truck, this was done every single morning, and sometimes throughout the day if lines were around the block. At home, you have the luxury of only cooking what you need, which is likely one or two peppers, an onion, and ten or so mushrooms. The best and easiest way to cook these is on the grill. Slicing vs. dicing is a personal preference; dicing makes each bite a little more uniform, but sliced vegetables sit nicer on the roll. Either way, all you need to do is slap these bad boys on the grill, season them well with salt and pepper, and cook until they've got some color. If you're feeling daring and want to spice things up, jalapeños are an acceptable topping. 

There are a few vital rules to follow when grilling, and no matter what style of flat-top or griddle you're using, preheating and seasoning are essential. In a food truck, the grills are going all day long which prevents the need to constantly re-season them. At home, you'll need to season your grill to get some flavor going and prep your surface for the delicious ingredients that are about to land on it. The first step is to set your burners to medium-high. This is a good starting point for cooking vegetables (aka, your toppings) and you can adjust your heat from there. Medium-high is also a good starting point for cooking shaved steak from frozen, but since no two burners are the same, use your best judgment. If the grill surface is too hot, turn the heat down and give the grill a few minutes to cool. 

Next, it's time to season the grill. This is a simple process and requires little more than some oil. Many of us use olive oil at home but for this, you'll want an oil that has a high smoke point. This means the oil won't burn when exposed to high heat, so canola or vegetable oil is perfect. Once you season the grill at the start of cooking, you won't need to season it again. Instead of using oil so things don't stick, spray some water and let the steam help to cook your vegetables or meat. 

This highly technical move takes years to perfect and should only be done by professionals — just kidding. The "flip" refers to the final step in making the cheesesteak. This move gained its name from the motion chefs make with the spatula and the sandwich when it's ready to be served. Not only does it serve as a quick way to get multiple sandwiches out the window in a short amount of time, but it's also the most efficient way to tuck everything into the roll in one nice, neat package. Your first time attempting the flip may not be perfect, and it's okay if a few pieces of steak or vegetables fall out. What matters is that you fill the roll and end up with the cheese on the bottom. It sounds counterintuitive, but here's why it works. 

To successfully master the flip, you need to lay the cheesesteak filling on the grill in the correct order. This starts with meat on the bottom, hot veggies on top, and then cheese. If you're using lettuce and tomato, these should go on last. Then, take your roll, open it just enough to create a wide mouth but not enough to rip the seam of the bread, and place it cut-side-down over the top of your filling stack. Then, use your wide spatula to get under all of that filling (the meat should be at the bottom), and flip the sandwich and the spatula in one fluid motion. You can use the side of the spatula to squish down any ingredients that try to escape, but it should be a little messy. Serving a cheesesteak this way keeps the juice from the steak from making the roll soggy, with the cheese and toppings serving as a foolproof barrier. 

Anytime you cook something, the cooking order should make sense. A food truck is essentially a miniature kitchen, and if things don't follow the right sequence, it can quickly become chaotic. Rather than scrambling to do things at random, make sure you have a smooth process in place before starting so there's no stress when creating your perfect cheesesteak. 

The ideal cooking order for an authentic cheesesteak is the very foundation of unspoken food truck rules. Missing just one step can result in an entirely different sandwich. For example, if you season the meat before cooking it on the grill, the salt can significantly change the texture. Building a cheesesteak is like building a house, starting with the foundation and layering to create something tantalizingly delicious. It might not seem that deep, but if you've had a cheesesteak that you still can't stop thinking about, it means some chef out there followed these rules to a T.

The finished product is also proof that you don't need to get fancy to create the perfect, mouthwateringly delicious cheesesteak. All you need is a flat cooking surface, the right tools, good ingredients, simple seasonings, and a little finesse. These trade secrets are why you can find one of the best cheesesteaks in the Northeast in New York, and now, you can create one that's equally impressive at home.