How to Make Delicious Croque Monsieur at Home



Test cook Bryan Roof makes Julia a show-stopping Croque Monsieur.

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47 Comments

  1. I made this for Christmas lunch!! Very nice!! And we really liked the Pepperidge Farm bread recommendation. Glad I was able to find it. The only changes I made were, I added a bit of dijon mustard in the middle of the meat as someone recommended and I prepared the mornay sauce the day before and refrigerated it. My friend and I both said the dijon helped cut through the cheese in a good way and really provided a nice layer of balance (I didn't spread it fully so some bites had the mustard and others did…that's how we were able to compare…next time I'll spread it). The bread stayed beautifully crunchy, too!! Not a hard crunchy, but a nice soft crunch.

  2. Like others here, I have tried several different ways of making this delicious sandwich, from simple to exotic. This particular recipe is very tasty but a bit too cheesy, in my opinion. If you like extra cheese on your pizza, you'll probably like this one, but my wife and I prefer making it without the bechamel/mornay sauce. We use French or Sourdough baguette, and slice diagonal slices for our sandwich. Butter one side, put ham on top of the buttered side, then grate gruyere on top of the ham. Then spread Dijon mustard on the top slice and complete the sandwich. In a skillet, melt some butter then put the sandwiches in and brown both sides. You end up with a crunchy sandwich with the great combination of gruyere and Dijon, plus the sandwich doesn't slide around while you are trying to eat it! All that bechamel/mornay makes for a sloppy and super-rich sandwich, but if that is your preference, go for it.

  3. I fell in love with this in Europe.
    White pepper, rather than black, since it is a white sauce. Give a Lightly milder flavor.
    Nutmeg is added to many recipes. Ice cream was my particular favorite.
    Thank you.

  4. I HATE it when they always say "mmm" when they take a bite. That says precisely nothing to the audience. Chris Kimball used to say "mmm" every time to the extent I stopped watching ATK until he left the show, but looks like they're still doing it. Why can't they instead say something that describes how it tastes, or what flavors are peaking through instead of the maddening "mmm".

  5. I lived five years in France, let me tell you their food is mediocre and overrated. They can hardly make anything without butter, flour, cream and cheese, just like this croque monsieur. So unhealthy and fatty! The French sit and ridicule Americans for our fatty food.. just look at that recipe.
    What about their awful way of cooking steak? They barely cook it just like in the stone ages. My family, friends and I are completely taken by Asian food way more flavorful than silly French or Italian food.

  6. This is one of those easy French things to make that wows people. Make it ahead so people don’t realize how easy they are to make and instead think you are a better cook than you actually are (at least in my case). I’ve found a lot of French dishes are fairly easy to make but have these great names that make them sound difficult.

  7. Why the insistence on “Parmesan cheese” and “Gruyere cheese”? Is there any doubt that, in this context, Gruyere is cheese? Does “Parmesan”’ refer to anything BUT cheese in a recipe? The redundancy just kills me.

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