The Croque Monsieur

There aren’t many sandwiches that I crave quite as much as a croque monsieur. It’s essentially a french ham and cheese sandwich often featuring a luscious béchamel or mornay sauce, ham, Gruyère and Dijon mustard. It’s sister sandwich, the croque madame, which features a fried or poached egg on top of it is also quite delicious. But there is just something about the croque monsieur that I find to be a little bit more desirable.

To me, a croque monsieur is all about the balance of ingredients and, despite all of it’s decadence, it can still be a rather delicate sandwich with a bite that is both crispy and gooey. This is achieved through balance, restraint and keeping top of mind that in this instance, less is more.

From the amount of béchamel and ham we use to how thinly we slice our bread, the aim of this sandwich isn’t to be a heavy and show stopping meal, but rather a reasonable lunch that can actually be whipped up pretty quickly, simply, and with items that are easy to keep on hand. Note: We’re using dill here but you can use your herb of choice or omit the herbs all together.

I really love recipes like this because they lean on 1 or 2 simple techniques (like making a béchamel sauce here) and produce food that really makes you feel like you’ve made something wonderful and complex.

Enjoy these while they’re hot, they’re a treat!

Below is the full recipe and step by step instructions for this, along with recipe mods and a social video where I cook these!

Cheers,

Joey

Youtube Video:

More recipes and videos on my Youtube HERE

Full Recipe:

The Croque Monsieur

Easily one of my most favorite sandwiches! It's simple to make and delivers a crispy and gooey bite that's still fairly light.

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Cook Time 25 minutes mins

Servings: 2

Course: Breakfast, lunch

Cuisine: French

Calories: 1343

Ingredients Method Nutrition Notes

Ingredients

  

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Béchamel Ingredients:

• 6 tbsp stick unsalted butter
• 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cup milk
• 3 tbsp whole grain mustard mustard
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• 1 tbsp dill sprigs

Sandwich Ingredients:

• 4 slices of bread sliced thin
• 6 slices of ham Paris ham is a great choice
• 6 oz gruyere grated
• 3 oz grated parmesan
• dill sprigs for garnish
• salt and pepper

Method

 

1. Preheat oven to 400’ F. To make the béchamel sauce, melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat until foamy. Add in flour and cook, stirring constantly for about 3 minutes, until foamy and raw flour flavor is gone. Whisk in milk and add a couple of dill sprigs. Continue whisking until the sauce is thick (3-5 minutes). Remove from the heat and whisk in 2 tbsp of mustard and nutmeg. Season with salt.
2. Line a ¼ sheet pan with parchment paper and lay 2 slices of bread on it. Butter the tops of both slices of bread with remaining butter. On one of the slices, layer your ham, a nice slathering of béchamel (end to end coverage) and gruyere. On the other slice, spread the remaining mustard.
3. Close the sandwich (butter/mustard side down) and slather the top with more béchamel. Grate some parmesan on top of that, season with pepper and garnish with dill sprigs. Note: Make sure to spread your béchamel on the bread end to end and in a fairly thin layer.
4. Bake in the over for about 15 minutes or until the top is nicely browned. Cut in half and enjoy it while it’s hot!

Nutrition

Calories: 1343kcalCarbohydrates: 48gProtein: 70gFat: 97gSaturated Fat: 53gPolyunsaturated Fat: 6gMonounsaturated Fat: 29gTrans Fat: 1gCholesterol: 295mgSodium: 2935mgPotassium: 796mgFiber: 4gSugar: 13gVitamin A: 2553IUVitamin C: 0.4mgCalcium: 1563mgIron: 4mg

Notes

To make this vegetarian simply omit the ham • Swap out the dill for your herb of choice.

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