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Croque Madame French Toast Casserole

Croque Madame French Toast Casserole

This takes a classic French sandwich, the Croque Madame, and turns it into a savory breakfast casserole. It’s a pretty smashing dish to look at, will make your kitchen smell incredible (thank you Gruyère!) and is excellent paired with a simple green salad with, what else, a French vinaigrette. 

Course Main Dish, Lunch, Brunch
Cuisine French
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Servings 6
Calories 492 kcal
Author Katie Morford

Ingredients

  • Olive oil for greasing the pan
  • 1 pound loaf of batard or other oval shaped crusty bread
  • 10 eggs
  • ¾ cup milk
  • 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
  • ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 handfuls arugula
  • 8 ounces coarsely grated Gruyère cheese
  • 8 ounces thinly sliced ham

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
  2. Pull out a casserole dish that is about 7 x 9-inches. An oval-shaped pan that’s 9 or 10 inches long would work, too. Lightly grease the pan with olive oil.
  3. Cut as much off the 2 long ends of the bread as is needed for it to just fit in the pan. Cut the bread into ½-inch-thick slices, trying to keep the bread in the order it was cut.

  4. In a large shallow bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, Dijon, salt, and a generous shower of black pepper.

  5. Taking 3 or so slices at a time, immerse the bread in the egg mixture, fairly aggressively dunking it on all sides so it’s saturated. Transfer to the baking pan so the slices are standing upright as they would in a loaf of sandwich bread. Repeat with the remaining bread, lining them up in the pan. You should have a little more of the egg batter left when you are finished soaking the slices, which you should set aside.

  6. Tuck a piece of ham between each slice of bread with a bit poking out the top. Divide it up so the ham is evenly distributed among the slices.

  7. Set aside about ¼ cup of the cheese. Tuck the rest of the cheese between the slices of bread. Do the same with the arugula, so there is a bit of greenery between each slice.

  8. Pour the remainder of the egg mixture over the casserole. Scatter the remaining ¼ cup of cheese over the top.

  9. Bake until the outside is nice and crusty with the inside tender and any egg that has spilled to the edges firm, about 35 minutes.

  10. Rest for about 10 minutes and serve in slices.