20 French Main Courses for Dinners Simple or Fancy (2024)

Classic French cuisine is foundational, a lesson in employing good technique to coax maximum flavor from seasonal, best-quality ingredients. Less is often more; there are no bells and whistles to hide behind as a dish's beauty lies within its simplicity. These are the French main courses that speak to the cuisine's tradition of sophistication: duck à l'orange, cassoulet, bouillabaisse, coq au vin, and more from iconic chefs like Jacques Pépin, Julia Child, Daniel Boulud, and Eric Ripert. Choose your favorite recipe, source the finest ingredients you can find, and enjoy the lesson.

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Ratatouille

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This vegetable stew from the South of France is a celebration of summer vegetables at the height of their ripe seasonality, traditionally made with tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, onions, and eggplant. Enjoy it as-is or with any protein; serve it warm or at room temperature over pasta or polenta, spooned over bread, or however else you see fit.

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Steak au Poivre with Red Wine Pan Sauce

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Red wine pan sauce is an amalgamation of fond (those browned bits left in the pan after searing meat), shallots, broth, good-quality red wine, and a few pats of butter to bind it all together and thicken it to a syrupy consistency. A perfect interplay of acid from the wine and sumptuous fat, the sauce is an ideal accompaniment to a peppercorn-crusted rib eye steak.

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Marseille-Style Shrimp Stew

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Large shrimp make this a knife-and-fork stew. Cookbook author Melissa Clark spreads a garlicky French rouille on toasted baguette slices for dipping.

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Duck à l'Orange

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Because a single duck rarely has enough meat to feed more than two or three people, legendary chef Jacques Pépin prepares two ducks side by side when serving this classic dish to guests. And because he's roasting whole ducks, he cooks them until they're well done, which results in the crispiest skin and best flavor.

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Julia Child's Favorite Roast Chicken

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Julia Child seasoned this roast chicken inside and out by packing sautéed vegetables, lemon slices, and fresh herbs into the cavity, then rubbing the skin with butter. In typical French fashion, she trussed the bird to promote even cooking.

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Lyon-Style Chicken with Vinegar Sauce

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When chef April Bloomfield tried a classic version of vinegar chicken in Lyon, she wished it were tangier. So, back home, she adds a hefty amount of Banyuls wine vinegar to the sauce. "I love the way the vinegar froths up when you add it to the pan," says Bloomfield, who finishes the chicken in the sauce to infuse it with extra flavor.

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Crispy Monkfish with Capers

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This is chef Daniel Boulud's take on wiener schnitzel, a breaded and fried veal cutlet. He lightens the dish by making it with thinly pounded monkfish fillets, breaded on only one side, and serves it with a mix of asparagus, zucchini, and butternut squash.

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Beef Stew in Red Wine Sauce

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This is the quintessential recipe for boeuf bourguignon — beef cooked in Burgundy red wine. Chef Jacques Pépin's mother served it at her restaurant, Le Pélican, where she made it with tougher cuts of meat. Jacques likes the flatiron — a long, narrow cut that's extremely lean but becomes tender and stays moist.

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Chicken Legs Coq au Vin

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Coq au vin is typically made with a cut-up chicken; this version from chef Eric Ripert uses only drumsticks, so the meat cooks uniformly in the rich red wine sauce.

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Stuffed Pork Tenderloins with Bacon and Apple-Riesling Sauce

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Chef Debra Whiting loves the fresh goat cheese from New York's Lively Run Dairy so much that she always works it into her dinner menu. Here, she mixes the cheese with apple, sausage, and greens, then stuffs it inside a bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin. To balance the richness of the cheese, look for a wine with good acidity, like a dry or semi-dry Riesling.

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Red Snapper with Citrus and Fennel Salad

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Daniel Boulud broils his snapper right on dinner plates, topping the fish with citrus, diced jalapeño, and bell peppers. A simple radish-fennel salad goes alongside. An easier way is to broil the snapper on a baking sheet, then serve it with a salad that combines all the bright, crisp flavors of the original dish: fennel, radishes, bell pepper, citrus, and jalapeño.

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Lobster Thermidor

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This classic lobster thermidor stuffs gently cooked lobster meat back in its shell with a wine-based sauce and a touch of cheese before it goes under the broiler. The natural sweetness of lobster still shines through the rich, but not heavy, cremini mushroom and dry sherry-laced cream sauce. A touch of cayenne adds warmth, not spice, that brightens the whole dish, while Parmesan cheese gets bubbly and brown under the broiler to finish each impressive stuffed lobster tail.

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Strip Steak Frites with Béarnaise Butter

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This brilliant take on steak frites is a specialty of 2000 F&W Best New Chef Andrew Carmellini. He tops seared strip steaks with a butter infused with tarragon, shallots, and vinegar — key ingredients in béarnaise sauce — and serves them with tangy French fries made from vinegar-brined potatoes.

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Classic Duck Confit

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Cooking duck confit may sound like something best left to restaurant chefs, but the process is simple, resulting in tender, delicious meat that melts in your mouth with each bite. It's simple — just season the duck legs, then cook them slowly over several hours and you'll have a meal ready to serve with a salad, pasta, or roast potatoes.

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Bouillabaisse

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Chef Ludo Lefebvre’s bouillabaisse starts with a quick-cooking and deeply flavored seafood broth. Layering a base of aromatics with fresh snapper, scallops, shrimp, and a mix of Pernod and dry white wine creates a long-simmered flavor in under an hour.

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Toulouse-Style Cassoulet

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Although there are innumerable versions of cassoulet, most are based on a stew of white beans and various forms of pork. The dish gets its name from the pot it's traditionally baked in, the cassole, which is often shaped like a wide inverted cone to ensure the greatest amount of luscious crust. This version includes duck confit and the French garlic sausages that are a specialty of Toulouse.

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Chicken and Mushroom Fricassee

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This lightened-up classic is fast to pull together — especially if you buy pre-sliced mushrooms. It has a rich, slow-cooked flavor. A splash of cream makes it extra decadent but still light.

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Lamb Stew with Root Vegetables

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Winemaker Jim Clendenen's version of this classic French stew, called navarin d'agneau, was inspired by vegetables from an extraordinary organic produce purveyor, The Chef's Garden, in his home state of Ohio.

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Ham Steaks in Madeira Sauce

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Julia Child was a longtime Food & Wine contributor — and a champion of ham. For this recipe, she was inspired by jambon à la morvandelle, the signature dish of famous French chef Alexandre Dumaine. "Although supermarket ham will do, real country ham will give you a dish more like Dumaine's fabled creation," wrote Child.

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Chicken Dijon

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Cookbook author Melissa Clark's favorite part of the chicken is the drumstick, because it's juicy and easy to brown. She likes using only drumsticks in this mustardy stew — thickened with tangy crème fraîche — so that all the meat cooks at the same rate.

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