The roots of French cooking run deep. The foundations of the country's culinary empire were laid back in the mid-1600s, when chef François Pierre La Varenne wrote his hugely influential recipe book Le Cuisinier François, which emphasized regional and seasonal ingredients and highlighted complementary flavors, terms and techniques all his own.
"At its core, French cooking is about making beautiful, refined dishes from simple ingredients," says Maryann Tebben, author of the book "Savoir-Faire: A History of Food in France."
"There is a certain mystery and magic to French cooking that still draws people in. Even the basics, a perfect baguette, flaky pastry, potatoes braised in cream, are stunningly good, even if we can't quite put our finger on what makes them so delicious."
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France's culinary influence has spread far and wide. When the famous TV chef Julia Child first tried sole meunière in 1948 at the restaurant La Couronne in Rouen, she was struck by the simplicity and refinement of French cooking all at once.
That dish inspired Child toward a culinary career that would later encourage an entire generation of Americans to abandon TV dinners and gelatin molds and return to fresh, flavorful food made from whole ingredients.
Child's experience was hardly unique. After all, it is no accident that so many of the words we use for a lover of good food, gourmet, gourmand, connoisseur, gastronome, come from French.
"French cuisine has been explored by generations upon generations of chefs, home cooks, passionate people like Julia (Child), and food writers," says chef Daniel Boulud, the Michelin-starred owner of 14 restaurants around the world. "And French cooking keeps inspiring people. It entertains. It's delicious. It's accessible. It's doable."
Whether rustic or haute cuisine, French cooking overflows with dishes that can win over even the most demanding critics. Take a look at 20 of them.
Beef Bourguignon
Could there be a more French way to cook beef than marinating it in red wine? Named bourguignon after the celebrated red wine from France's Burgundy region, this dish pairs a good, marbled cut of beef with dry pinot noir and plenty of fresh vegetables to create a hearty, satisfying stew.
The dish has been the subject of endless debate over which cuts of beef and which wines produce the best flavor. But the single most important ingredient for success is patience: like any good stew, bourguignon is better left overnight before serving.
Not a fan of beef? Another French favorite, coq au vin, takes the Burgundy dish as its base and hands the leading role to chicken.
Bouillabaisse
Bouillabaisse, with its long name and even longer list of ingredients, is the seaside city of Marseille's gift to France's culinary canon. Once a poor man's dish and now a staple on the menus of many Michelin-starred restaurants, the soup elevates the catch of the day above a standard soupe de poisson.
According to the Marseille bouillabaisse charter, an attempt to standardize the ingredients and preparation of this classic dish, the soup must include at least four of six specific types of fish, filleted right in front of diners. Alongside the shellfish and the fragrant broth, no self-respecting bouillabaisse would be complete without croutons dipped in rouille, a spicy garlic sauce.
Tarte Tatin
Tarte Tatin: this rustic upside-down tart with caramelized apples has a deep, buttery flavor.
This list of classic French dishes would be incomplete without something from the country's vast repertoire of pastries. Though it is not as refined or architectural as some of the treats displayed in the windows of French sweet shops, the buttery, bubbling tarte Tatin, essentially an upside-down caramelized apple tart, is known around the world for its rich flavor and unique story.
As legend has it, sisters Stéphanie and Caroline Tatin ran a restaurant in France's Loire Valley in the late 19th century, when Stéphanie was overwhelmed in the kitchen by a rush of customers during hunting season. She accidentally left the apples for her apple tart cooking too long and tried to rescue it by covering the apples with dough and baking it. The resulting dish, steamed apples under caramelized sugar with a crisp crust, became so popular that it was eventually named after the sisters: la tarte des demoiselles Tatin.
While tarte Tatin will certainly be delicious wherever you try it, the best place to taste it is where it was born.
French Onion Soup
French onion soup: a cozy, brothy soup with bread and melted cheese.
Onion soup is not a new invention, nor even a dish that can be tied directly to France, some of its early versions date back to Ancient Rome, but the most famous version? The one you picture when you think "onion soup"? The one you order to start a meal, with beef broth, onions, toasted bread and gloriously tasty Gruyère cheese? That one is all France.
The element that truly sets this soup apart from other, less indulgent onion-based versions is the layer of cheese blanketing the steaming broth. This comes from baking the soup under the broiler to melt the cheese and achieve what the French call a gratin.
The gratin technique "is about cooking something in a shallow dish that goes into the oven and gets covered on top with a crust, which means creating a crust, and that crust can be cheese, it can be bread, it can be anything else. But the crust has to be beautiful," explains Boulud, who opened a restaurant in New York, Le Gratin, devoted to the technique. The most popular dish at that restaurant is another French favorite, gratin dauphinois, or potato gratin.
Escargot
Escargot is probably one of the best-known, or most notorious, depending on who you ask, of all French dishes. This delicacy, whose history reaches back to the Roman Empire, may not be to everyone's taste, but it is well worth trying for those craving a little adventure.
The classic recipe calls for cooking the snails with parsley and garlic butter. The snails are served warm, either in their shells or in special dishes with six to twelve small compartments. Bread is often added to the plate to soak up the rich buttery flavor. These are no ordinary backyard snails. The most popular species for making escargot are Burgundy snails, which are specially protected in France.
Chocolate Soufflé
Named after the French word souffler, meaning "to puff up," the chocolate soufflé or one of its savory counterparts resembles a cloud. This rich yet light dessert has graced French tables since the 18th century, but it was truly perfected by the revered chef and arbiter of haute cuisine Marie-Antoine Carême in the mid-1800s.
Despite its famous difficulty, the soufflé has a simple list of ingredients. Its remarkable airy texture comes from separating the egg whites from the yolks and whipping them into a firm meringue before folding them back into the chocolate batter. The baking time and cooking temperature are exacting, and easy to get wrong, but the payoff is immediate: the soufflé is served hot and straight from the oven.
Crêpes
Not every French dish gets a whole day dedicated to it, but then again, a crêpe is more than just a French dish. As the most popular French entry in the world's catalogue of pancakes, crêpes have a unique versatility. They can be served for breakfast, lunch or dinner; made with buckwheat flour, traditional to the Brittany region, or with more common white flour; folded into triangles or rolled into logs.
The paper-thin pancake is prepared with a bit of theater on large griddles in crêperies. Today you can find crêpes made with any combination of sweet and savory ingredients, but a popular choice remains crêpes suzette, made of caramelized sugar, orange juice and, for extra drama, flaming liqueur.
Salade Niçoise
Salade Niçoise is a celebration of the fresh, bright produce available on the French Riviera, where the dish was born. Elegantly arranged on a tray or a large platter, the salad consists of lettuce and a simple dressing of olive oil or vinaigrette that lets the true star of the dish really shine: the crudités, or raw vegetables.
A purist's Salade Niçoise might consist of a seasonal assortment of fresh tomatoes, olives, capers and green beans, served cold, with a topping of anchovies or tuna. But as the salad grew in popularity beyond Nice, ingredients like boiled eggs, potatoes, red bell peppers, fava beans and cucumbers began to be added often.
The sandwich version of this salad, pan bagnat, is also worth a taste. Picture all the delicious ingredients of a Niçoise salad tucked into a pain de campagne, or French sourdough.
Crème Brûlée
Every bite of crème brûlée is an exercise in opposites. The sweet taste of the vanilla custard contrasts with the almost bitter flavor of the brûlée topping; the crunch of the caramelized sugar against the smooth, creamy texture of the custard beneath it; the gentle water bath used to bake the custard versus the fierce flame of the blowtorch used to melt the sugar. In this dish, opposites clearly attract.
It is hard to say when, or even where, the first crème brûlée was made. In France, Spain and England, similar recipes appeared as far back as the fifth century. But one thing is certain: throughout human history, people have always loved a good creamy dessert. And who are we to disagree with 1,500 years of reviews?
Cassoulet
Perhaps the most filling of France's hearty dishes is cassoulet. This bean stew, which originated in the southern town of Castelnaudary, can have different ingredients depending on the region. In Castelnaudary the white beans are cooked with duck confit, pork and sausage. In Carcassonne they use game meat, such as mutton. In Toulouse they add a filling of breadcrumbs.
The general and historical premise is the same: take all the hearty, edible ingredients on hand and put them in a pot, or more precisely, an earthenware dish.
This dish is so beloved by the French that in Castelnaudary there is a brotherhood of its own dedicated to protecting it, the Grande Confrérie du Cassoulet. "The aim of the Grande Confrérie is to serve the prestige of, spread and protect the reputation of the cassoulet de Castelnaudary, ensuring respect for tradition and quality," reads a statement on the brotherhood's website.
Quiche Lorraine
Eggs with cream, smoky bacon, flaky pastry: quiche Lorraine is the quintessential French brunch. But what became a staple in any decent French bistro or boulangerie had a fairly turbulent start.
The term "quiche" comes from the German word for cake, kuchen. This is because the first quiches were made in the German kingdom of Lothringen, which in the Middle Ages spanned several present-day Western European countries.
The egg-and-cream custard pie was a favorite in the Lothringen region, which was later annexed to France and became, you guessed it, Lorraine. The borders shifted, but the dish remained. Now quiche is served all over the world with any number of tasty and inventive flavor combinations.
Duck Confit
What was once a way of preserving meat or vegetables before refrigerators came along has become one of the most famous French cooking methods. The confit process yields juicy, tender meat with crispy skin, enriched with the flavors of salt, herbs and its own fat. What is not to love here?
Confit is certainly not the simplest process, but it is hard to imagine a more delicious way to cook duck. First the raw meat is treated with salt and aromatics, such as thyme or garlic, and then braised at a low temperature for several hours until the fat renders out completely. The meat can then be stored together with the fat in an airtight container for several weeks or even months, until you are ready to sear it and eat it.
This technique can easily go wrong, but when done right, the duck comes out nutty in flavor and so tender it falls off the bone.
Ratatouille
Among the many rich beef and poultry dishes in France's culinary tradition, there is one famous dish that suits vegetarians: ratatouille. From the French word touille, meaning "to toss," ratatouille originated in the southern region of Provence but quickly won popularity across France thanks to its use of fresh summer vegetables.
Ratatouille is made of a colorful collection of eggplant, zucchini, peppers, onions and tomatoes. It can be prepared by baking all the vegetables as a casserole or by sautéing them with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. The resulting stew can be served hot or cold. According to the James Beard Foundation, it pairs beautifully with a crusty baguette, topped with an egg, parmesan, or both.
Profiteroles
Profiteroles: what could be better than a puff of pastry? A puff of pastry covered in chocolate.
Beautiful, sweet and small enough to eat more of them than is probably wise, profiteroles come in any flavor. Filled with vanilla custard, whipped cream or even ice cream, these little cream puffs can be topped with chocolate sauce, fruit, or simply served plain.
The airy, delicate dough is pâte à choux, or choux pastry. One of the foundations of French pastry-making, choux pastry is used for éclairs, beignets, Paris-Brest and much more. It is made by mixing flour with water, milk and butter, after which eggs are added. The resulting dough is moist and spreads easily, and when baked it becomes light and puffy.
Thanks to its simplicity, profiteroles are a common dessert taught to the young in French households, explains David Lebovitz. "French cuisine is very technique-oriented, and pâte à choux is a very easy technique to master."
Sole Meunière
Sole meunière: this fish dish showcases one of France's most iconic ingredients, butter.
This fish dish is fit for a king, literally. It is said that in the late 1600s the delicate flesh was a favorite dish of King Louis XIV. This deceptively simple dish is made from just a handful of ingredients, but its flavors are complex thanks to a special fish-cooking technique.
For the most classic version, Dover sole is chosen for its firm flesh and fresh flavor. The sole is dredged in flour and pan-fried in butter to a tender, crisp, golden crust, then sprinkled with parsley and sizzling browned butter, or beurre noisette, which has a rich, nutty flavor.
Terrine
Terrine: the loaf-like shape defines this dish, but you can experiment with many flavor combinations.
Terrine is a wonderful dish for the most creative cooks. Named after the earthenware pot that molded its characteristic, loaf-like shape, the dish has a specific look, but the flavor combinations are practically limitless. Make a terrine rustic, using ingredients like pork and beans, or luxurious, using ingredients like rare game and truffles. The dish can be made with poultry or fish, or even entirely with vegetables.
The most important quality of any ingredient? Big flavor.
Terrine, not to be confused with other popular charcuterie items like pâté or rillettes, is made by layering ground meat with any combination of additional ingredients into a terrine mold and cooking it slowly in a water bath. This dish can be dense enough to serve as a main course, or it can make an excellent appetizer with crusty bread and cornichons, small crunchy pickled cucumbers.
Steak Frites
Steak frites: this simple, universally loved dish of steak and fries pairs well with red wine.
Try to name a more classic pairing than steak and potatoes. Since its appearance in France and Belgium, steak frites has become a centerpiece on brasserie and bistro menus across Europe, and for good reason. The elements of the dish are simple and universally loved: a searing cut of beef steak with a side of hot, crispy fries.
The steak is often served with a creamy béarnaise. Made from clarified butter, herbs and egg yolks, the sauce creates a rich accompaniment to a juicy rib-eye or porterhouse. Paired with a good red wine to cut through the heavy flavor, this dish makes an ideal choice for an everyday dinner.
Jambon-Beurre
Jambon-beurre: gather quality ham, butter and a baguette, nothing more and nothing less.
Jambon-beurre is exactly what it sounds like: jambon, or ham, laid over a layer of beurre, butter, between two slices of bread, nothing more and nothing less. The simplicity of this sandwich forces its maker to use only the finest ingredients, because every element is just as important as the last.
The bread, always a baguette, neatly sliced down the center, should be freshly baked, with a crisp crust and a soft interior. The ham is best if it is jambon de Paris, coming straight from France's capital, thinly sliced and free of additives and preservatives. The butter, ideally straight from the northwestern region of Normandy, should be lightly salted and generously spread.
Also known as the Parisien, the jambon-beurre is used as a kind of barometer of the popularity of classic French cuisine among the country's own people. According to Maryann Tebben, an annual index measures the number of jambon-beurre sold against the yearly number of hamburgers, so the country does not stray too far from its roots.
Blanquette de Veau
Blanquette de veau: tender meat in a creamy, comforting sauce, one of the most beloved dishes of French home cooks.
A favorite of home cooks all across France, blanquette de veau is a veal stew cooked "en blanquette," meaning neither the meat nor the butter is browned during cooking. The result is a dish of tender meat and mild flavor, coated in a creamy, comforting sauce.
The white sauce is made using one of France's greatest contributions to cooking technique worldwide: whisking melted butter with flour to make a roux. The flour acts as a thickener, creating a denser base, and also serves as a binder between the sauce and other ingredients, such as cheese or cream. You can thank this technique for creating the base of dishes like gumbo, some curries and creamy mac and cheese.
Pot-au-Feu
Pot-au-feu: this beef and vegetable stew is the perfect dish for cold weather.
Step aside, chicken noodle soup, there is another dish laying claim to the title of the perfect cold-weather meal. Pot-au-feu (meaning pot on the fire) is a warm, simple and fragrant slow-cooked dish.
Considered a national dish of France, pot-au-feu has no definitive recipe, and many regions of France have their own versions. Typically the dish is made with meat, root vegetables, herbs, spices and bone marrow, which are cooked together but served as separate courses: first the marrow, then the broth, and finally the meat and vegetables.
A large serving of pot-au-feu is said to embody the spirit of French cooking: to share food, wine and conversation at a table full of loved ones, that is what makes life worth living.
