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    Home » Cuban

    Published: Apr 11, 2020 · Modified: Mar 18, 2024 by Neyssa

    Ham and Cheese Croquettes

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    Croquetas de jamon (ham croquettes) are flavorful bite size bechamel fritters that has a light crispy outside and a delicious creamy inside with notes of ham, sofrito, and spices!

    croquettes on a gray plate

    This recipe was originally posted two years ago and a reader left a comment that the previous recipe was a little crumbly. It was time for an update!

    Jump to:
    • 🥘 Ingredients
    • 🔪 Instructions
    • 🥖 How To Roll
    • 🍳 How To Fry
    • 💭 FAQ
    • Recipe
    • 🥗 Side dishes
    • 💬 Comments

    Funny story, I was editing the images and my mom called. I told her what I was doing and she asked me to walk her through every single step.

    Apparently, I passed the test, ha! Although she stated that Cubans do not add tomato sauce to their croquetas. (It is what it is, take it or leave it.)

    a pile of croquettes on a gray plate with lime wedges

    🥘 Ingredients

    Croquettes are perfect for pantry staple challenges. The ingredients used for croquettes are often on hand. We're making ham croquetas today!

    There may seem like a bunch of ingredients, but croquettes are easy to make!

    • butter
    • onions
    • sofrito + seasonings
    • tomato sauce (completely optional, but I added for color)
    • all purpose flour
    • milk (I ran out and used dry milk with water.... trying to flatten the curve here.)
    • ham
    • manchego cheese
    • eggs
    • breadcrumbs

    🔪 Instructions

    Ham croquettes are made in ten easy steps!

    collage of ham in food processor, sofrito in pan, and croquette dough in pan

    How to make croquetas de jamon (Cuban ham croquettes)

    1. Use high quality thin sliced ham and either pulse it 4-6 times in the food processor or finely chop it.
    2. Melt butter in pan, cook onions until softened, add in sofrito, seasonings, and tomato sauce and cook an additional minute.
    3. Pour in flour and little by little pour in milk while whisking until flour has absorbed all of the milk and it is a creamy roux. Taste for seasonings!
    4. Fold in ham and grated manchego cheese.
    5. Continue cooking for about 7-10 minutes, stirring often to keep the flour from burning.
    6. Once your flour has cooked through and is no longer sticking to your pan (it will almost form into a ball, think of play-doh), remove from pan.
    7. Place the croquette dough onto a large plate and either flatten it (cools quicker) or roll it into a large log.
    8. Allow dough to come to room temperature, cover with plastic wrap, and then refrigerate for 2-4 hours.
    Croquette dough flattened on a white plate and another rolled into a log.

    What's the difference?

    Not much! It's just a preference. Some people like to spread it flat so it cools quicker, and they just use a spoon to scoop up the dough to roll.

    Or you can roll the croquette dough into a large log and then just neatly cut off the desired amount when ready to roll.

    🥖 How To Roll

    Wondering how to roll croquetas? To roll croquettes you just need to:

    • Scoop desired amount and place on your hand. (A tablespoon works great.)
    • Roll it into a ball. (I feel this helps warm the dough with your body heat and that it revives the dry top layer of the dough.)
    • Gently roll/flatten croquette into a log shape. (Or a mini cigar.)
    Croquette dough rolled into a ball on a hand.

    🍳 How To Fry

    Frying croquetas de jamon (ham croquettes) is the traditional way of making Cuban croquettes.

    An outline of croquette rolled in eggs, bread crumbs, and fried.
    • Crack eggs into a bowl and whisk with a fork.
    • Dip croquette into the egg wash and allow excess yolk to come off before coating the croquette with breadcrumbs.
    • Gently drop croquette into hot oil and fry for 2-4 minutes or until a beautiful golden color.
    • Drain over a plate lined with paper towels before serving.
    Open croquette on a pile of croquettes on a gray plate.

    💭 FAQ

    What is a roux?

    Roux is flour + fat = creamy goodness.

    In all seriousness, all a roux is is a blend of flour and milk that is cooked with a fat base like butter, oil, or lard.

    flour over a butter and herb mixture for croquettes

    How to make a croquette roux:

    • Heat fat (butter, oil, or lard).
    • Add in seasonings, onions, etc for flavor.
    • Add in flour and cook through until translucent (about 30 seconds).
    • Pour in milk SLOWLY and whisk milk and flour together until creamy.
    • Keep cooking until the mixture has thickened.

    Do I have to use ham?

    This croquette recipe with ham can be made with turkey or chicken, or even omit to make a vegetarian croquette recipe.

    If you choose to use turkey or ham, I still highly suggest using deli meat for ease!

    diced ham over a roux in a stainless steel pan

    How do you reheat ham croquettes?

    Croquettes are best eaten fresh. I highly suggest you only fry what you're going to eat, and freeze the rest until ready.

    How to reheat ham croquettes:

    • Bake at 375 for 7-10 minutes, or until warmed through.
    • Airfry at 375 for 3-5 minutes, or until warmed through. (Spray with cooking spray before reheating for a fresh crispy coating.)
    • Fry for 1-3 minutes or until heated through.
    • Microwave in 30 second increments until heated through. (Leave this option for last! Microwaving croquettes will leave croquettes limp and not crisp!)

    Help, my dough is crumbly!

    Recipes are made to be adjusted. If you find your croquetas are dry and crumbly, add more milk (just a little at a time) until the dough is moist.

    On the opposite end, if your dough is too wet (sticks to your hands), dust a little flour over the dough until dough is firmer.

    Whole fried croquettes on a gray plate with lime wedges.

    Recipe

    croquettes on a gray plate

    Cuban Ham Croquettes | Croquetas de jamon

    Lightly breaded and crispy on the outside with a warm and creamy ham and herb bechamel sauce in the center.
    No ratings yet
    Print Pin Rate
    Course: Appetizer
    Cuisine: Cuban
    Keyword: croquette, fritters
    Prep Time: 25 minutes minutes
    Cook Time: 5 minutes minutes
    Cooling Time: 2 hours hours
    Total Time: 2 hours hours 30 minutes minutes
    Servings: 18 1
    Calories: 116kcal
    Author: Neyssa
    Cost: 5

    Equipment

    • stove

    Ingredients

    • ¼ cup butter
    • 3 tablespoon onions finely chopped
    • 2 tablespoon sofrito
    • 2 teaspoon parsley flakes
    • 2 teaspoon chicken bouillon powder
    • ½ teaspoon salt
    • ½ teaspoon black pepper
    • 2 teaspoon tomato sauce
    • ¾ cup all purpose flour
    • 1 cup milk
    • 1 cup deli ham finely chopped
    • ½ cup manchego cheese grated
    • 2 eggs whisked
    • 1 cup Italian breadcrumbs
    • oil for frying
    Get Recipe Ingredients

    Instructions

    • Croquette Dough
    • Melt butter over medium high and add in onions.
    • Cook onions for 2 minutes, or until softened.
    • Add in sofrito, seasonins, and tomato sauce. Stir often and cook for 1-2 minutes.
    • Add in flour and slowly whisk in milk. Lower heat if necessary to keep from burning.
    • Continue whisking until sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. Fold in ham and cheese.
    • Once sauce thickens, using a rubber spatula to stir, continue cooking bechamel sauce until it no longer sticks to the pan and becomes dough with play-doh like texture.
    • Remove dough from pan and either spread dough against large plate or roll into a large log.
    • Let dough get to room temperature, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2-4 hours.
    • Preparation
    • Scoop a tablespoon of cold and hardened croquette dough and roll into a ball, then shape into a small log.
    • Dip into egg wash (eggs whisked in a bowl), remove excess yolk and then roll over breadcrumbs.
    • Frying
    • Warm 3-4 inches of oil in a medium deep pan or pot over high heat. (Lower as needed.)
    • Gently add a few croquettes and fry for 2-4 minutes or until a light golden color.
    • Drain croquettes on a paper towel lined plate.

    Notes

    1. Use a food processor to pulse ham until finely chopped. (About 3-4 pulses.)
    2. Freeze any uncooked croquettes for future use.
     

    Nutrition

    Calories: 116kcal | Carbohydrates: 9g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 6g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Cholesterol: 35mg | Sodium: 401mg | Potassium: 86mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 140IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 33mg | Iron: 1mg

    🥗 Side dishes

    Croquettes are appetizers that pair well with simple light sides like:

    • tossed side salad
    • deviled eggs (our bacon Tajin deviled eggs recipe is great)
    • macaroni salad
    • potato salad
    • grilled vegetables (like our Tajin asparagus)
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      Malanga Fritters
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    About Neyssa

    Neyssa is a Latina food blogger who shares her Cuban and Puerto Rican family recipes for home cooks to make.

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Kelly says

      June 12, 2018 at 11:18 am

      YUM! That sounds amazing. Love how you let your heritage inspire your game day goodies, and sharing your personal connection to the beautiful game. #client

      Reply
      • Latina Mom Meals says

        June 12, 2018 at 11:03 pm

        Thank you Kelly. 🙂

        Reply
    2. Nan Zitney says

      June 19, 2018 at 2:06 pm

      My grandparents lived in Honduras for years and I always remember her having an ice cold glass bottle of Coke'cola. I grew up loving it too.

      Reply
      • Latina Mom Meals says

        June 19, 2018 at 3:20 pm

        Ice cold makes all the difference. It's the best! Thank you for passing by and sharing a memory. 🙂

        Reply
        • Jaye says

          December 14, 2018 at 9:44 pm

          I am trying this recipe tonight for my holiday party tomorrow.
          Two things: you should add milk to the recipe list as I had to go back to store to get it. I really hope two cups of flour was meant for the roux ??

          Reply
          • Latina Mom Meals says

            December 17, 2018 at 8:56 pm

            Thank you for catching that Jaye! I went back through and fixed it. Yes, it's meant for the roux. 🙂 Please let me know how it went.

            Reply
            • caren lobo says

              April 09, 2020 at 4:46 pm

              Your recipe says 1 cup of milk.
              Is that correct? I needed 2 cups of milk to make it anything other than totally dry and crumbly

    3. Alexandra Goico says

      September 27, 2022 at 7:12 pm

      Sofrito, is that something you have ready made at home? I thought it was a blend of onions, peppers etc. Anyway, this recipe sounds amazing, and I want to try it. But how do I make sofrito?

      Reply
      • Neyssa says

        April 03, 2024 at 4:44 pm

        This is the link to my 'Sofrito Recipe' have any more questions feel free to reach out:). https://latinamommeals.com/authentic-puerto-rican-sofrito-recipe/

        Reply

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    Neyssa is a Puerto Rican and Cuban self-taught home cook who lives right outside of Philly and is on a mission to share recipes that are inspired by her Cuban and Puerto Rican heritage.

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