Croque-Monsieur is an upgraded grilled cheese sandwich with ham and a delicious bechamel sauce on top. Baked in the oven until the cheese is oozy, this is an easy French bistro-style meal.
You can serve it with a salad or a soup on colder days, you are sure to please a crowd!
Weeknight Croque-Monsieur
Such an easy recipe to put together that this should belong to your recipe repertoire for busy nights! Typically, if I make this in winter, I will serve it with soup. However, in summer, with a nice colorful garden salad.
Also, don't get intimidated by the bechamel, I have broken down the 2 easy steps in this tutorial. You will rock it! It's really quick to put make, the longest I would say would be when you add the milk gradually, you have to be careful not to create any lumps. Although no biggie if you do.
Of course, as you know, I love to include the kids in helping me to prepare dinner (and I'm guilty of not always having the patience I must admit).
About the cheese...
To be really authentic, a croque-monsieur would be topped with gruyère. Since I'm in Canada, I adapt and chose a mix of grated cheese: mozzarella and cheddar.
I love to adapt my French background to my adoptive country. But putting cheddar in my croque-monsieur does not top off my S'Mores Crème Brûlée!
Authentic French Croque-Monsieur
Ingredients
Building the croque-monsieurs
- 12 slices bread
- As needed butter
- 6 slices ham, large, cut in 2 or 12 small
- 1 and ½ cup grated cheese cheddar or your choice
Bechamel
- ⅓ cup flour 40g
- ⅓ cup butter cubed 40g
- ¾ cup milk
- Salt to taste
- Nutmeg to taste optional
Instructions
Building the croque-monsieurs
- On a baking sheet and a parchemin paper, place 6 bread slices.
- Butter the bread and place a piece of ham of all of them.
- Put some cheese on top and cover back with the rest of the ham.
- Top with the remaining bread.
Make the Bechamel
- Prepare your ingredients: Mise en place.
- In a pot, on low to medium heat, melt the butter.
- Add the flour.
- Stir well, you have a roux.
- Add a little bit of milk and stir. Repeat until you have poured all the milk.
- Season to taste.
- Stir (still on low to medium heat) until the sauce coats the back of the spoon.
Final assembly
- Pour some bechamel on top of the bread. Add some more cheese.
- Bake in the oven at 420F for 20 minutes.
Cristina says
This looks se perfectly delicious and I love that it’s baked!
Mélanie says
Thank you so much for stopping by Cristina!
Womensecr.Com says
Grilled ham and cheese: nothing to scoff at. Baked ham and cheese with velvety bechamel oozing out all over the place: mind-altering.