Croque Madame
Prep Time 15 minutes 
Cook Time 15 minutes 
Total Time 30 minutes 
Servings 2Ingredients
- 4 slices white bread
- 2 slices plant based ham
- 100 gr Gruyère cheese or Emmental
- 25 gr unsalted butter
- 25 gr plain flour
- 300 ml whole milk
- 1 pinch nutmeg optional, but recommended!
- 2 egg
- salt and black pepper
Equipment
Instructions
1. Make the Béchamel Sauce
- In a small saucepan, melt the butter over a medium heat. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute or two, stirring constantly, until you have a smooth paste. Gradually whisk in the milk, a little at a time, to avoid lumps. Keep whisking until the sauce thickens, then season with a pinch of nutmeg (if using), salt, and pepper. Set aside to cool slightly.
2. Assemble the sandwich
- Preheat your grill to high. Lay out two slices of bread and top each with a slice of vegetarian ham and a generous sprinkle of grated cheese. Spread a spoonful of the béchamel sauce over the remaining two slices of bread and place them, sauce-side down, on top of the vegetarian ham and cheese. Press gently to sandwich together.
3. Cook the Croque
- Heat a little butter in your frying pan over a medium heat. Add the sandwiches and cook for a couple of minutes on each side, until golden and crisp. Place the sandwiches on a baking tray and spread the remaining béchamel sauce over the top of each sandwich, sprinkle with the rest of the cheese, and place under the grill for 3–4 minutes, or until bubbling and golden.
4. Fry the Eggs
- While the sandwiches are under the grill, fry the eggs in a little butter or oil in a separate pan, until the whites are set but the yolks are still runny.
5. Serve
- Place a fried egg on top of each sandwich and serve immediately, with a crisp green salad or a handful of cornichons on the side.
Notes
- While classic French recipes often call for white bread (pain de mie) to let the flavours shine through, feel free to use your favourite bread, it’ll taste just as delicious. Whether you choose sourdough, wholemeal, or another variety, you’ll still enjoy all the comforting flavours of a true Croque Madame!
- No ovenproof pan? Assemble the sandwiches on a baking tray and finish them under the grill.
- Leftovers? (Unlikely, but just in case) Reheat gently in the oven for best results.
About this recipe
My mother made croque madame for lunch when I was a kid, not as something special, not as a treat, just as a normal Saturday at home. It’s food that becomes so part of your life that you stop noticing it, until you’re somewhere else and suddenly miss it a lot.
Every French person knows how to make a croque madame. It’s simply a foundational recipes that is really easy to make and always good to eat. A proper béchamel is what makes it delicious, and the fried egg on top adds even more richness. Perfect for those gooey cheesy cravings!
Croque Madame vs Croque Monsieur
The croque monsieur is the original. You’ll find it in pretty much every French bakery, café, and brasserie across France. A toasted ham and cheese sandwich with béchamel, grilled until golden and bubbling. The name comes from the French verb croquer, meaning to bite or crunch, and monsieur, meaning mister. It’s the everyday sandwich of France, the thing you order when you’re hungry and don’t want to think too hard about it.
The croque madame is exactly the same thing but with a fried egg on top. That’s the whole difference. The egg, madame rather than monsieur, is a playful reference to a lady’s hat. But what a difference it makes! The yolk, broken over the hot béchamel and melted cheese, becomes a sauce all of its own. The richness goes up ten notch. Technically it then stops being a snack and becomes a full meal.
The mother sauce: béchamel
If you skip the béchamel, you basically have a grilled cheese sandwich. Also nice, but nothing alike a Croque Madame. The béchamel goes on top of the bread before grilling, creating a golden, slightly crisp layer that holds everything together and adds a richness that melted cheese alone can’t give you.
Béchamel is one of the five French mother sauces, the foundational preparations that underpin a huge amount of French cooking. Once you know how to make it properly, you unlock a whole category of dishes.
The five French mother sauces
If you’d like to try making all five at home, I’ve written up all the recipes for you. Subscribe to my newsletter and I’ll send them straight to your inbox!
Pick good bread, obviously
Use bread with proper structure, something that can handle being buttered, filled, sauced, and grilled without falling apart. A good white sandwich loaf or a pain de mie is traditional. Sourdough works really well if you want more flavour. Avoid anything too rustic or full of holes, the béchamel will fall straight through.
Oven-proof frying pan
If you have an ovenproof frying pan, use it. You can build and start the croque madame on the hob, then slide the whole pan straight under the grill to finish it off without transferring anything to a baking tray. One less thing to wash up, and the sandwich doesn’t move around or risk falling apart in the process!
How to eat tartiflette
In France, croque madame is lunch food, but we have it for dinner too when that cheese craving comes. You eat this gooey french grilled cheese hot with a green salad on the side with a sharp mustard vinaigrette to cut through the richness of the béchamel and the egg. A few cornichons on the side are never a bad idea either. The acidity does the same job as the vinaigrette and they go naturally with the ham flavour.
One rule: serve it immediately. The béchamel starts to firm up and the egg yolk sets as it cools, and you lose the essence of this dish. Get it to the table while everything is still hot and runny!
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