French Thanksgiving food is quite numerous, delicious, and sophisticated. Food is an art. It is no coincidence that the word “chef” came from the French word “chef de cuisine.”
Neither did the Michelin star restaurant rating mistakenly originate from France. Art, food, and fashion are to the French as Vodka is to Russians; this means they love their food and desserts.
Besides, a holiday is perfect for the French to cook and display their love for art and food.
Since French Thanksgiving food is several, it could be confusing and difficult to decide on the recipe for this Thanksgiving.
Hence, I have narrowed it down to just 23 French Thanksgiving foods you should try cooking this Thanksgiving.
1. Herbed Haricots Verts
This is one of the French Thanksgiving foods that can serve as a side dish on the Thanksgiving menu. It is a delicate bean dish that is sophisticated and can be enjoyed during the holidays.
Additionally, this dish is made with haricots vert (slender French green beans), butter, extra-virgin olive oil, salt, ground black pepper, parsley, tarragon, and chervil chives.
2. Apple, Celery Root, and Carrot Salad
Another French Thanksgiving food is apple, celery root, and carrot salad. This is a simple, modern, and lighter appetizer. Celery root and raw apple are grown in abundance in the French region.
Furthermore, the vegetables needed to make this salad are apples, apple cider vinegar, kosher salt, ground pepper, fresh lemon juice, celeriac, golden raisins, Dijon mustard, carrots, and vegetable oil.
3. Brioche a Tete
Brioche a Tete is another appetizer that is served as French Thanksgiving food. It could also be served as dessert.
This appetizer is the perfect showcase of butter. Besides, the name fits it perfectly, as tete means head in French.
This type of brioche has a large sphere topped with a smaller one (the head). It is made with the typically used baking ingredients: eggs, milk, sugar, flour, fine salt, unsalted butter, and active dry yeast.
4. Turkey Confit
Well, we know turkey is the main dish on the Thanksgiving menu. There is no exception on the list of French Thanksgiving food.
Turkey remains the main event. During the holiday, there are numerous ways to cook or roast a turkey.
Anyway, curing and cooking turkey legs and wings in duck fat is one way the French cook their turkey.
This makes the turkey succulent, after which it is roasted in an oven to make it crispy.
This dish also uses rendered duck fat, turkey wings, legs, kosher salt, ground black pepper, bay leaves, rubbed sage, and dried thyme.
5. Pomme Puree
Pomme puree is another French Thanksgiving food. This dish involves passing cooked potatoes through the fine holes of a potato ricer.
Furthermore, this is done to ensure that the mashed potato has a silky consistency and serves as an ultra-rich side dish.
Additionally, this dish is made from Yukon gold potatoes, unsalted butter, kosher salt, heavy cream, and ground white pepper.
6. Apple Clafoutis
This dessert is on the French Thanksgiving food menu. It is a Clafouti (a French batter cake) to which apple cider syrup is added.
Moreover, apple cider syrup is added to the sauce of the clafoutare. Additionally, the clafoutis is made with eggs, salt, sugar, all-purpose flour, vanilla extract, milk or heavy cream, and unsalted butter.
While the apple syrup is made with unsalted butter, apples, sugar, ground cinnamon, and brandy.
7. Sage-Brined Roast Turkey with Oyster Dressing
This is another way to cook turkey on the French Thanksgiving menu. Simply put, this involves stuffing a sage-infused turkey with hazelnuts, oysters, and wild rice.
Furthermore, this dish is made with sage, kosher salt, turkey, wild rice, olive oil, dried thyme, bay leaves, Vidalia onions, long-grain rice, white wine, and onions.
The dish is also used to prepare celery, chicken or turkey stock, cubed bread, unsalted butter, ground black pepper, bacon, garlic, toasted hazelnuts, and shucked oysters with juices.
8. French Pumpkin Pie
Just like turkey, Thanksgiving dinner is not complete without a pumpkin pie. Hence, there is a pumpkin pie on the French Thanksgiving food menu.
Besides this, French pumpkin pie is made similarly to the regular pumpkin pie made in the States.
There is just a little twist. The ingredients used to make the French pumpkin pie are egg, butter, sheets of puff pastry, kabocha squash or Cinderella or cheese pumpkin, granny smith apples, brown sugar, pecans, and vanilla bean.
9. Maman’s Apple Tart
This is another dessert on the French Thanksgiving food menu. It takes about 2 hours and 15 minutes to prepare and requires a large bowl, pastry brush, aluminum foil, knife, wooden spoon, and a 9-inch glass pie plate.
Additionally, all-purpose flour, apricots, whole milk, sugar, kosher salt, baking powder, egg, unsalted butter, vegetable shortening, and Empire or Cortland apples are used in its preparation.
10. Pear Tarte Tatin
This is another French Thanksgiving dessert that is traditionally made with apples. However, pears make a delicious, delicate alternative.
To make the pastry, you will need flour, butter, shortening, and salt. The filling contains pears, sugar, unsalted butter, and lemon juice.
11. Butternut Squash Ginger Soup
This French Thanksgiving food can be eaten as an appetizer for a bigger meal or as a light dinner with crusty bread and a fresh salad.
Additionally, this meal is made with butternut squash, onions, salt, garlic, grated and ground ginger, unsalted butter, and chicken broth.
Then, garnish with sour cream or creme fraiche, which is optional.
12. Vegan Cauliflower and Potato soup
This French Thanksgiving food is one vegans will enjoy as it involves no animal produce. This meal is gluten-free.
Besides, unlike most potato soup recipes that use butter, this uses vegan margarine, vegetable broth, and bay leaves to add flavor.
Besides, the ingredients in making this meal are garlic, olive oil or vegan margarine, potato, cauliflower, vegetable broth, bay leaves, onions, green onions, nutmeg, vegan cheese, salt, and ground black pepper.
13. Raw Tangy Cranberry Relish
Is it a Thanksgiving meal if there is no Cranberry? Cranberries must be present at Thanksgiving dinner, which is one way they are made on the French Thanksgiving food menu.
This method is also easy to freeze and can last up to 3 months. Furthermore, this cranberry recipe uses cranberries, sugar, honey-crisp or Pink Lady apple, and zested and juiced oranges.
14. Roasted Maple and Orange-Glazed Turkey
No one wants to cook the turkey the same way every Thanksgiving. It becomes too predictable and almost boring.
Hence, this is the third turkey cooking method on our list of French Thanksgiving food.
Besides, this is one of the quickest ways to cook your turkey. The orange and maple glaze brings out the turkey’s rotisserie-style flavor, making it perfect for your Thanksgiving dinner.
The ingredients used are white onions, celery, chicken stock, dry white wine, orange zest, orange juice, carrots, turkey, ground black pepper, fresh thyme, sage, salt, butter, olive oil, and maple syrup.
15. Caramelized Apples
Apples are abundant in the French region. Thus, there are a number of meals involving apples on the French Thanksgiving food menu. Besides, this is an ideal cheater version of a tarte tatin or even an apple pie.
Moreover, it is made with unsalted butter, crisp apple (Honeycrisp, Crispin, or Jonagold), ground cinnamon, lemon zest, granulated sugar, and apple cider. However, you can optionally add cornstarch and water as needed.
16. Swiss Chard Gratin with Vegan Bechamel
This is another French Thanksgiving food that vegans can enjoy. Moreover, it is made with Swiss chard, non-diary bechamel, yellow onions, grated Comte, salt, oat bran, and pepper.
However, the egg can also be added optionally. You could substitute the Comte with any grateable cheese or nutritional yeast.
The oat bran could also be replaced with bran from any other grain or dried breadcrumbs.
17. Spaghetti Squash Gratin with Walnut and Bacon
Next on our list of French Thanksgiving foods is Spaghetti Squash Gratin with Walnuts and Bacon.
This dish is made with spaghetti squash, walnuts, smoked bacon, mozzarella, dried breadcrumbs, chili pepper, salt, olive oil, and pepper.
18. Elbow Macaroni with Comte Cheese and Baby Spinach
This is another French Thanksgiving food. An unpopular popular Thanksgiving dish is mac and cheese, and this dish is a posh mac and cheese.
Someone could call it a grown-ish mac and cheese with an extra serving of greens.
Besides, it can be prepared in 10 minutes with elbow macaroni, ground pepper, ground nutmeg, salt, baby spinach, salted butter, Comte cheese, Parmesan, or Gruyere cheese.
19. Squash Bisque with Smoked Duck
This is a French Thanksgiving food that serves as an appetizer. Moreover, it is made with carrots, smoked magret duck breast, potatoes, butternut squash, Spanish onions, celery, chicken broth, heavy cream, pepper, honey, and salt. Then, garnish with toasted pumpkin seed oil.
20. Muriel Chicken
A fun fact is that the French only eat turkey during Christmas; they normally eat chicken during Thanksgiving.
However, because people(Americans) expect to see a turkey on the Thanksgiving table, they incorporated some turkey recipes into their French Thanksgiving food menu.
Anyway, Muriel Chicken is a staple of the Thanksgiving dinner table. This method of cooking chicken is simple and foolproof.
You need a few quality ingredients and patience to cook them slowly. Furthermore, these ingredients are chicken, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, olive oil, salt, garlic, ground pepper, and lemon.
21. Salt-Crusted Chicken
This is another French Thanksgiving food that is simply chicken cooked using a different method.
This method also allows the chicken to cook in its juices and allows flexibility in cooking time. This dish can be prepared in 2 hours.
Additionally, this dish uses chicken, parsley, ground flax seeds or egg whites, fresh or dried thyme, garlic, all-purpose flour, and coarse salt.
22. Chicken in a Bread Crust
This is a really fancy French Thanksgiving food that is sure to leave an impression on your guests.
It is a two-in-one French recipe that involves the bird being tucked inside a bread crust.
Moreover, this method of cooking the chicken allows you to mop up all the flavorful cooking juices with the bread crust.
The bread crust is also prepared with bread flour, salt, sourdough starter, dried thyme, and water. Meanwhile, salt, garlic, and parsley are used on the chicken.
23. Sourdough Baguette
Is it a French holiday dinner without a Baguette? So, a baguette is on the list of French Thanksgiving food.
Besides, instead of getting those store-sold baguettes, you can quickly make this sourdough baguette for your Thanksgiving dinner at home.
Some useful equipment for making this baguette is a pizza peel, baker’s blade, flexible dough scraper, dough cutter, plastic shower cap, square or rectangular baking stone, and linen kitchen towel.
However, this equipment is not compulsory. Furthermore, the ingredients used in making this baguette are wheat flour, purified water, natural starter, powdered gluten (optional, but it is useful when working with French flours as they are soft), and sea salt.
Conclusively, these are some French Thanksgiving foods you should try making this Thanksgiving.
However, if you cannot cook or do not want to spend much time cooking, you can get some Thanksgiving canned food.
