Broccoli and Cheese Galette Recipe

Inspired by the childhood classic, this savory free-form pie is loaded with sautéed broccoli and onions tossed in a rich, creamy Gruyère cheese sauce.

Closeup of a broccoli and cheese galette, fresh from the oven.

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

Why It Works

  • Pre-cooking the vegetables tenderizes them and reduces their moisture.
  • An egg wash gives the pastry a glossy sheen, and helps seal the edges.

Some days when I stroll through the farmers market in spring, what I desire is to eat all those fresh vegetables in their purest and cleanest form, as if I'd just plucked them straight from the ground. I want the taste of new shoots and green life. And then sometimes I want to melt those green vegetables until tender, fold them with cheese, and wrap it all in a silky sheet that's half-made from butter. In short, vegetables luxuriating in a bath of fat, cradled in more delicious fat. That's called a galette, FYI.

Kidding. Galettes are free-form pies, and while they can be sweet like fruit pies, they can also be savory. Decadence should know no bounds.

Here's how to make them, plus a recipe starring broccoli, onion, cheese, and buttery, flaky pastry.

Choose Your Vegetables, Then Cook Them

A vegetable galette isn't just for spring—they can be made at any time of year. You just need to think about what you want in the galette, and how you want to handle it. Here, I'm using broccoli as the featured player, and rounding it out with onions. For another example of how this vegetable galette template can play out, see my recipe featuring asparagus, leeks, and mushrooms.

You could also use leafy greens, or tomatoes, or various summer or winter squashes, or corn, or eggplant, or potatoes even. There's hardly anything that won't work, as long as you handle the combination with a little forethought. There are two things in particular you want to think about: the texture and water content of the vegetables.

Unlike sweet fruits such as peaches and apples, many vegetables, if packed raw into a galette, will never tenderize sufficiently in the time it takes to bake the crust. Others, like tomatoes, will dump their juices, threatening to turn the filling into soupy slop. With fruit galettes and pies, starches are added to thicken those juices, but I can't think of too many cases where a savory, starch-thickened vegetable sludge sounds appealing.

The solution in most cases is to pre-cook the filling, eliminating excess liquid, tenderizing the vegetables, and concentrating their flavor. Tomatoes can be roasted in the oven, leafy greens can be cooked down spanakopita-style, and winter squash can be roasted until browned and softened.

Exactly what form your vegetables take is also up to you. You could leave them in beautiful big pieces, or chop them smaller, or go for a more purée-like texture. You could also do a mix, possibly even keeping some components separate and then layering them into the galette during assembly.

Picking up a wedge of broccoli and cheese galette

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

For the broccoli galette, I sautéed the florets until they were beginning to soften, then mixed in sliced onions, and continued cooking until the onions were wilted and everything was beginning to turn golden.

Any spices, herbs, or other flavorings you'd like to add can go into the mix at this stage.

Enrich the Filling (Preferably With Cheese)

Now, you don't have to add a megadose of dairy to make a good vegetable galette. You could leave the vegetables as they are for a presentation that lets the greens speak for themselves. I support this. But I also support embracing the inherent richness of a pastry-wrapped pie and running with it. I'm not terribly creative with this kind of thing, so extra richness to me more or less equals cheese.

For the asparagus galette, I folded grated fontina into the filling. You could use many other good melters, such as Gruyère, Jack, or mozzarella, or a cheese like feta that will keeps its shape and add a briny punch.

For this broccoli galette, I took inspiration from broccoli with cheese sauce, making a Gruyere-spiked béchamel sauce (more succinctly known as Mornay sauce) and drizzling it into the vegetables.

Make Sure You Have Some Killer Pastry (We Do)

Once your filling is ready, it's time to assemble the galette. But first you need a crust! We've got you covered there. Stella's old fashioned pie crust is one of the best I've ever had, and because it has a minimal amount of sugar in it, it works just swell in a savory setting like this.

Assemble and Bake

To assemble a galette, pile the filling onto a 14-inch round of the pie dough on a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving a two-inch border all around.

Cut slits into that ring of dough every five inches or so. Fold each flap of dough up and over the filling, making sure each successive flap makes a good seal with the one before it. By the time you've gone all the way around, you should have a nice rim of dough hugging and exposed center of filling. (For a better idea of how this looks, see the step-by-step photo in the recipe below.)

Brush the pastry with an egg wash for a glossy look, then bake in a 400°F (205°C) oven until the pastry is golden and flaky and the filling is hot and bubbling. For my broccoli one, I sprinkled more cheese all over the crust midway through baking, to create a crackly, frico-like crunch.

You may never go back to the sweet versions again.

May 2019

Recipe Details

Broccoli and Cheese Galette Recipe

Prep 10 mins
Cook 70 mins
Active 90 mins
Chilling Time 2 hrs 10 mins
Total 3 hrs 30 mins
Serves 4 to 8 servings

Ingredients

  • 1/2 batch old-fashioned flaky pie dough

  • 5 tablespoons (75ml) extra-virgin olive oil, divided

  • 1 pound (450g) broccoli, cut into small florets with stalk slivers attached

  • 1 medium (8-ounce, 225g) yellow onion, thinly sliced

  • Kosher salt

  • 1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter

  • 1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

  • 1 cup (235ml) whole milk

  • 6 ounces (170g) grated Gruyère cheese, divided

  • 1 large egg, beaten

Directions

  1. Prepare old-fashioned flaky pie dough according to the recipe. After rolling, folding, and dividing dough in half, roll one portion into a 14-inch round. Transfer to a parchment-lined aluminum rimmed baking sheet, cover with plastic, and refrigerate to relax and chill dough for at least 2 hours or up to 24.

  2. In a large sauté pan, heat 3 tablespoons (45ml) olive oil over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add broccoli and cook, stirring occasionally, until broccoli is crisp tender and lightly browned in spots, about 5 minutes.

  3. Add onion along with the remaining 2 tablespoons (30ml) olive oil, season with salt, and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Lower heat to to medium-low and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until broccoli and onions are tender, about 8 minutes longer. Add 3 tablespoons (45ml) water to pan and, using a spoon, scrape up any browned bits. Remove from heat.

  4. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, heat butter with flour over medium-high heat, until butter has melted and formed a paste with flour. Continue to cook, stirring, until raw flour scent is gone, about 1 minute. Whisk in milk until smooth and cook, whisking to prevent lumps, until sauce comes to a simmer and begins to thicken slightly. Lower heat to low and cook, stirring, until sauce is thick enough to coat back of a wooden spoon, about 3 minutes. Whisk in 4 ounces (115g) cheese until smooth, moving saucepan on and off heat to keep it hot enough to melt cheese but not so hot that it bubbles rapidly. Season Mornay sauce with salt.

  5. Scrape the Mornay sauce into the broccoli and stir to combine.

    Cooking broccoli and onion, then adding a cheese sauce, for a savory galette

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

  6. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat to 400°F (205°C). Spread broccoli mixture on prepared dough round, leaving about a 2-inch border of dough all around. With a sharp knife, cut a series of slits in the border of dough, each running from filling to edge of dough, spacing them about 5 inches apart. Fold each segment of dough over filling, tugging gently so the edge of each segment tightly overlaps the one that came before. Chill galette for 10 minutes in the refrigerator.

    Collage of assembling a broccoli galette

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

  7. Brush egg over chilled dough in a thin, even layer (including under each flap). This will give the crust a glossy, golden sheen and help bind the pieces together.

  8. Bake galette for 20 minutes. Sprinkle remaining 2 ounces (55g) cheese all over the pastry, then continue cooking until galette is golden brown around the edges and bubbling in the center, about 20 minutes longer. Let cool 5 minutes, then slice into wedges and serve warm.

Special Equipment

Large sauté pan, small saucepan, rimmed baking sheet, parchment paper

Make-Ahead and Storage

The galette can be held at room temperature (and served warm or at room temperature) for a few hours after making. Leftovers can be wrapped in plastic and refrigerated, then reheated in a warm oven.

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Nutrition Facts (per serving)
471 Calories
32g Fat
35g Carbs
12g Protein
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Nutrition Facts
Servings: 4 to 8
Amount per serving
Calories 471
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 32g 41%
Saturated Fat 12g 59%
Cholesterol 55mg 18%
Sodium 523mg 23%
Total Carbohydrate 35g 13%
Dietary Fiber 3g 12%
Total Sugars 5g
Protein 12g
Vitamin C 38mg 190%
Calcium 289mg 22%
Iron 2mg 9%
Potassium 322mg 7%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)