Updated September 2026, with a make ahead note and cutting tips.
This bread is melty and hot and gooey and bubbly. Perfect for watching a football game or having friends over.
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“Man can not live by bread alone”, they say, but I bet if you added some cheese and garlic to it you could!
Now, as you can see on the picture above, this is some divinely delicious looking cheesy garlic bread.
“Did i hear mumbling from the behind” ??
“You don’t love the bubbly wonderfulness of piping hot garlic cheese bread” ??
Write this date on your calendar. Because that’s all about to change. This cheesy bread is not just slapping some cheese on a piece of bread. There is the love of cheese that has to go with it, and two surprise ingredients that makes this cheese beyond cheesiness, melty and yummy. Butter and mayo.
I can’t think of a better thing to accompany a delicious Italian meal, or watching a football game than this cheesy, buttery garlic bread. Words cannot describe how good this bread is, so please just do yourself a favor and make it. Now! I know it is sinful, but so worth it.
I’ll stop talking now and let you start cooking.
What Makes This Bread Bubbly
The spread goes on thick and the cheese goes on top of it, so the two melt into each other instead of drying out separately. Half a cup of softened butter and half a cup of mayonnaise, whisked with two crushed cloves of garlic, makes enough to cover a whole loaf edge to edge. That layer holds moisture under the cheese for the full 20 minutes in the oven, and that is where the bubbling comes from. Butter alone would run out of the bread and leave the top greasy and flat.
Cover the cut face all the way to the crust. The corners are where a slice goes dry, and they are the pieces somebody always ends up with.
Which Bread to Use
A soft French or Italian loaf, split lengthwise, not a sourdough or a baguette. The crumb has to be open enough to take the spread but soft enough to cut with a plastic knife once it is hot. A hard crusted baguette fights you at the table and the topping slides off the slice.
One loaf, halved lengthwise, then each half cut into eight after baking, gives 16 pieces. Day old bread is better than fresh here, it holds the topping instead of soaking straight through.
Does This Garlic Bread Use Mayonnaise or Salad Dressing?
This bread uses real mayonnaise, not salad dressing, mixed straight into the butter. Half a cup of mayonnaise, whisked with half a cup of softened butter and the crushed garlic, is what makes the topping stay creamy under the cheese instead of drying out in the oven. If you have made this before with a bottled Italian dressing standing in for the mayonnaise, that swap works in a pinch, but it is not the version that gives the bread its name. Plain mayonnaise, the kind you would put on a sandwich, is the one to reach for.
Cheddar and Mozzarella, and Why Both
One cup of each, because they do different jobs. Mozzarella gives the stretch and the pull when someone lifts a piece off the tray. Cheddar brings the sharpness and most of the color, and it browns in spots while the mozzarella is still pale. Use only mozzarella and the bread tastes flat, use only cheddar and it turns oily rather than stretchy.
Shred it yourself if you have five spare minutes. Bagged shredded cheese is coated with starch to stop it clumping, and that coating is why bagged cheese sometimes melts into something grainy instead of smooth.
Making It Ahead for Game Day
Spread and top the bread, cover the tray, and keep it in the fridge for up to a day before baking. This is the part worth planning, because the bread is best straight out of the oven and nobody wants to be mixing spread while the game starts. Bake it from cold and give it 5 extra minutes, so 25 rather than 20.
It does not freeze well once it is baked. The bread goes soft on thawing and the topping separates. Assemble ahead and bake, rather than bake ahead and reheat.
How to Cut It So It Holds Together
Let it sit for 3 or 4 minutes out of the oven, then cut each half into eight with a serrated knife. Straight out of the oven the cheese is liquid and runs off the slice. Three minutes is enough for it to set just short of firm, which is the point where a piece comes away clean and still pulls a string of mozzarella behind it.
Sixteen pieces from one loaf. That feeds about eight people as an appetizer, or four who are not sharing.
A NOTE ON THIS RECIPE
This bread bakes the same way it always has, butter, garlic, cheese, and 20 minutes in the oven until it is bubbly. The one thing that needed fixing was the ingredient list itself, it named mayonnaise in the story above but never listed it below, and readers have been asking which one is right for years. Mayonnaise is now in the ingredient list where it belongs.
It is a good one to make ahead of a game day, assemble it, keep it covered in the fridge, and bake it right before kickoff.
If mayonnaise still feels like an odd choice for garlic bread, try it once, most readers say they cannot taste it at all, just a creamier, less greasy bread than butter alone gives you.
More Game Day Favorites
Jalapeno Popper Dip
The thing people scoop with this bread. Cream cheese, bacon and jalapenos, baked hot in the same oven.
Easy Spinach Artichoke Dip
The milder option for a table that has kids at it, and it is ready in about the same 20 minutes.
Crock Pot Kielbasa Bites
Two ingredients, a slow cooker, and nothing to watch once it is on. Good when the oven is already busy with the bread.
Bubbly Cheese Garlic Bread Recipe
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter softened
- 2 cloves garlic crushed
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1 cup shredded Cheddar
- 1 cup shredded Mozzarella
- 2 tsp dried parsley
- 1 loaf French or Italian bread halved lengthwise
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Combine butter, garlic and mayonnaise together in a large bowl.
- Arrange bread on a baking sheet, cut-side up.
- Spread butter mixture over slices.
- Spread the cheese mixture and sprinkle parsley evenly on the bread pieces.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, until the cheese is melted and bubbly.
- Slice each half into 8 pieces; serve warm.
Just a quick question-
The post says butter and mayo are used, but the recipe does not state mayo.
So mayo or no mayo?
Thanks!
Real mayonnaise, mixed with the butter and garlic. The ingredient list used to say salad dressing, which was wrong, I have fixed it. Half a cup of mayo is what you want.
good
Why don’t let us print ant o your recipe’s . ?
There is a Print button right on the recipe card above, look for the printer icon next to the recipe title. If it is not showing up for you, let me know what device or browser you are using and I will look into it.
I’m confused. In the description leading up to the recipe you said butter and mayo are why this bread is so good. However, in the recipe I don’t see any mayo. I have glasses so does that mean I’m finally going blind?
You are right to be confused, the recipe card was missing it. It is mayonnaise, not the salad dressing that used to be listed, I have corrected the ingredient list. Glasses had nothing to do with it.
Narrative says secret ingredient is mayo. The recipe does not have mayo in ?
You caught a real mistake, the recipe listed salad dressing but the story above always said mayo. Mayonnaise is now in the ingredient list, half a cup, mixed right into the butter.
You talk about using butter and mayo but the ingredients list creamy Italian salad dressing. Which is it? I’ve never heard of Italian mayo. Please clarify. Thank you.
It is mayonnaise, thank you for flagging this, the ingredient list wrongly said Italian salad dressing for a long time. There is no such thing as Italian mayo, just plain mayonnaise mixed with the butter and garlic. Fixed now.