The best and easiest Croque Monsieur

Bonjour!! In today’s blog, I will bring you to les bistrot de France 🇫🇷 for a crack at making le Croque monsieur! Linguistically, I love the sound of Croque, meaning “to bite” and that is quite literally the sound you make when you bite into this sandwich….C R O Q U E! And monsieur means “mister” so this sandwich is supposed to be quite the gentlemen! Me and my fellow gentlewomen content-creators in the office certainly have no trouble eating this whole sandwich so why the discrimination? 🤪

Now, what is a Croque Monsieur? A Croque Monsieur is a cheese toastie with ham, done the French way! To me, it is the perfect sandwich. A 10/10! Think butter-fried bread, melty cheese, juicy ham …… ooh la la!

This sandwich serves as a snack or lunch, born in the brasseries and bistros of France.

It is made with simple ingredients that many of you may find in your fridge or pantry, namely bread, cheese, ham slices, mustard, butter and flour. Various versions of Croque Monsieur have been reproduced such as Croque Madame, which is the same sandwich but topped with a fried or poached egg. The egg, is suppose to resemble a woman’s hat – how adorable! But the importance is placed on the bread. Restaurants might do this with the softer and richer pain de mie but at home, white country bread is most frequently used, as it is the bread that most French people have at home on a daily basis. And the cheese that is generally used is either Gruyère or Emmental, which are slightly sharp to balance the richness of the béchamel sauce. This rich sandwich is highly satisfying for a quick lunch, especially when paired with a simple salad! 

Béchamel Sauce

Béchamel sauce forms the basis of many French sauces,  one of the five Mother sauces in French cuisines, which serves as a cornerstone for any secondary sauce variations. The five sauces are mainly Béchamel, Velouté, Espagnole, Hollandaise, and Tomato. These sauces have been proven to be essential in the French kitchen using the simplest pantry ingredients but are functionally important as foundations for many classic French dishes! For today’s recipe we will devote our attention to the béchamel sauce! 

It starts with a blonde roux by whisking flour and butter and then adding in the milk once it has bubbled. If you are pondering what is roux, it is a mixture of equal parts of flour and fat, creating a glistening and thickening agent to be used in our béchamel sauce! Making roux is no simple task as there will be times when it will clump together or the sauce is just too thin! But believe me, once you have nailed the art of making a roux, you can basically take on other amazing dishes!

Back to our béchamel sauce, the preparation begins with adding milk to the roux and seasoning with salt. Nutmeg is often added to the sauce’s extra spice, aroma and earthy flavour. Béchamel has been around for decades and it has served as a staple for many Italian and French cuisines. Incredible as it seems, béchamel sauce originated in Italy from the regions of Tuscany!

To make the béchamel sauce, we will start with the roux. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Once the butter has completely melted and bubbled, turn the heat down to low and stir in all the flour at once. This is the stage where we cook the flour until it reaches a golden blonde colour. It will take between 3-5 minutes of continuous stirring. You can also use a whisk but a wooden spoon worked really well for this small batch. 

Next, pour the milk gradually and keep stirring. Continue to add the milk until the sauce thickens and it is spreadable. Since I am making the béchamel for a sandwich, I’ve made it a little thicker than usual, so that it spreads and clings nicely to the bread without turning it soggy. Once thickened, add the nutmeg powder and salt. 

Let the béchamel sauce cool down. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator, and if you ever find yourself in a situation where you need béchamel sauce at once to make Lasagna or quick Mac & Cheese for the kiddos, you already have this mother sauce on hand! 

Time to assemble! 

Grab two slices of bread, I’ve used rustic sourdough here.

Butter is essential and we will be spreading a generous amount of butter on each side of the bread slices. Fry them on medium-high heat till golden on both sides. Keep your eyes peeled on them so that they won’t burn. 

Before assembling the sandwich, grab a wedge of the pièce de résistance, the gruyère cheese! This is a hard, Alpine cheese, known for its nutty, earthy, slightly sharp flavour. The one I got is slightly aged and still has a little touch of creaminess to it. Grate the cheese until you have your desired amount! For the Croque monsieur, it’s either plenty of cheese or don’t Croque monsieur at all! 😂

Once the bread slices are ready, place them side by side and spread a good amount of cooled béchamel across one and a layer of Dijon mustard across the other slice. Sprinkle grated cheese over the béchamel sauce.

Place 4 slices of ham on top of the béchamel sauce and sprinkle with even more grated gruyère. How glorious! I am using turkey ham for this recipe, but you can use any type of ham that is easily available near you. 

Top this off with the other slice of bread, mustard side down. On this bread, spread another generous layer of béchamel sauce and top it off with more cheese! Be still my heart!!!!

Place the sandwich on a pan or a tray and bake it for 8 minutes followed by 3-4 minutes on the broiler. Take it out when it’s bubbly and golden brown. 

Et voila, le Croque Monsieur! A sinfully delicious, crunchy and savoury sandwich. 

I hope you enjoyed this recipe!