Baked Chicory with Ham and Cheese

This baked chicory with ham and cheese is a kid friendly veggie recipe that doesn’t taste like veggies thanks to the cheesy Bechamel sauce.

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• ⭐ Why you'll love this recipe
• 📖 Ingredient notes
• 🔪 Step by step instructions
• 🍲 Other French recipes you might like
• 📋 Recipe / Recette

⭐ Why you'll love this recipe

Baked Chicory with Ham and Cheese is a real classic here in France!

This recipe is a good trick to make your kids (or even adults) eat more veggies as the main ingredient is endive. But it really doesn’t really taste like it thanks to the cheesy Bechamel sauce and the ham wrapped around each endive.

📖 Ingredient notes

• Chicory. Also called endives, Belgian endives or French endives. If you're looking for more recipes with chicory/endives you can try my French endive apple walnut salad.
• Ham. The type of ham I'm using is called "cooked ham" in France. But you can use any kind of ham you want or have on hand.
• Bechamel sauce. It is a French white medium-thick sauce. It is usually made with butter and wheat flour. Although here, I'm using a gluten free, dairy free version of it. You can either use my gluten free bechamel recipe or use a regular bechamel if you're not gluten free. This sauce is used a lot in France to make all kinds of casserole or, as we call them "gratin". This sauce makes it much easier for kids to eat vegetables. I also use this sauce to make my Gluten free au gratin potatoes and my Healthy vegetarian cauliflower casserole.
• Grated cheese of your choice. As I can't have cow dairy I'm using sheep cheese (a French cheese called Ossau-Iraty). But you can use cheddar, gruyère, emmental or whatever you prefer.

For the ingredient quantities for this Belgian endive and ham au gratin recipe, please see the recipe card below.

🔪 Step by step instructions

• Rince the chicories / endives and cut the reddish end. Then, cook them for about 10 minutes in a steamer or in boiling water.

• In the meantime, prepare the bechamel sauce.
• Drain the chicories. Then roll each one in a ham slice and put them in a baking dish (as shown on the pictures below).

• Add half of the grated cheese to the bechamel. Mix well with a whip.
• Pour the Bechamel sauce over the chicories. Add the rest of grated cheese all over the chicories.

• Bake for about 30 minutes or until it gets a nice golden color and voilà! Serve warm.

🍲 Other French recipes you might like

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📋 Recipe / Recette