Country French potato dinner with lardons & fromage blanc
This country French potato dinner is a super-simple and comforting meal. Serve up some velvety steamed potatoes topped with fromage blanc and lardons (or easier-to-find alternatives). Sprinkle it all with chives, salt, and pepper, and voilà, an easy French meal. Serve with a crisp lettuce salad with a vinaigrette dressing.
In America, potato dinner usually involves baked potatoes loaded with sour cream, bacon bits, and a myriad of other possible toppings. This French version, a classic in northeastern France, uses steamed potatoes, though boiled or baked work just fine, too. My husband tells me this French potato dinner was traditionally considered a “poor-man’s meal.” Now, we’d call it a budget meal. 😉 In either case, the ingredients are very basic for France. Wherever you live, you can keep the spirit of the dish and use local options.
So, if you’re not sure about those lardons or that fromage blanc, there are some decent substitutes out there!
Lardons
In France, lardons are as ubiquitous as bacon is in America. If you aren’t familiar with lardons, they are pork belly cut into matchsticks. They’re similar to thick-cut bacon, but a bit less fatty. Either thick-cut bacon or pork belly cut into matchsticks makes a perfectly good substitute here. Some specialty stores in the US might carry lardons. My husband (the French guy) used to find them (over ten years ago) at Whole Foods.
Fromage blanc
For a country French potato dinner, we use fromage blanc at our house, but “faisselle” is another popular option. Both are acidic, fresh cheeses and bring a bit of extra protein to the dish. Just like with sour cream, the acidity of the cheese balances out the starchy potatoes and keeps the dish from becoming too heavy.
Fromage blanc resembles yogurt, but the flavor is closer to sour cream or cream cheese. It uses different lactic cultures from yogurt and ferments at a lower temperature. A bit of the whey is also drained off, so it is a bit richer in protein and fat than yogurt (unless you pick a low-fat variety). My favorite fromage blanc is a set-style (fermented in the cup), but you can also find it stirred, just like yogurt.
Faisselle resembles a curdy (chunky) yogurt sitting in its whey. It’s sold with the curds sitting in a plastic strainer within the cup. When you eat it, you can lift the strainer out and dump out the whey. Some more whey will keep coming out of the curds if you let it sit much longer. Faisselle has a very acidic flavor, and is often lower in fat than fromage blanc. That acidity is why I prefer fromage blanc, but to each their own!
Alternatives to fromage blanc that work with a French potato dinner
Some alternatives to fromage blanc or faisselle include
- Quark: Similar flavor, but usually a drier cheese. If there’s a choice, choose a creamier version.
- Greek yogurt: The flavor is less complex and less cheesey, but still a great option
- Sour cream + nonfat Greek yogurt: Make a mix that’s half sour cream, half nonfat Greek yogurt for a flavor that’s closer to fromage blanc.
- Cottage cheese: This is closer to faisselle, though in cottage cheese the curds are firmer and there’s a yummy cream dressing instead of acidic whey.
Potatoes in France
Obviously, people eat potatoes all over the world, steamed or otherwise. In France, steamed is one of the most basic ways to prepare potatoes. Typically, the potatoes are peeled before steaming here (I rarely see the French eat the peel, usually to avoid the chemicals applied that limit sprouting).
Lots of potato options
The French serve potatoes many different ways (the frozen potato aisle is huge), and not just mashed, baked or in fries. You can find pommes noisettes (“hazelnut potatoes”, like crispy little balls of airy mashed potatoes, they only resemble hazelnuts) to pommes duchesse (“duchess-style potatoes,” eggy mashed potatoes piped out like frilly cones and baked) to gratin dauphinois (kind of like American au gratin, but more creamy, less cheesy).
Alsace’s version of French potato dinner
In Alsace, there is also a potato dish very similar to the French potato dinner I’m sharing here, called bibeleskaes, but the fromage blanc is mixed with a bit of crème fraîche, salt, & pepper. The toppings for bibeleskase also include raw garlic & shallots along with the chives. You can serve this with smoked ham, pork belly, ham hocks, or other cuts of cured pork.
You might also like…
If you enjoy lardons, check out my authentic quiche Lorraine. For other eats from France, you can try my lentil salad with goat cheese & pickled onions, this cheesy soufflé, or my caramelized onion tarte tatin with goat cheese, figs, & olives.
Country French Potato Dinner
Ingredients
- 1 kg waxy potatoes such as Yukon gold
- 225 g (8 oz) lardons (see note 1 for substitutes)
- 700 g (25 oz) fromage blanc (see note 2 for substitutes)
- 4 tbsp chopped fresh chives
- Salt & pepper
Instructions
- Steam the potatoes: Peel the potatoes. Place a steaming basket inside a large pot or pressure cooker. Add water to the pot, to just under the bottom of the steaming basket. Place the peeled potatoes in the bowl, and cover. Steam with the water at a boil until the potatoes are tender. The amount of time will depend on the size of your potatoes. For smaller potatoes (about 60 g/2 oz each), steam for about 25-30 minutes. I used a pressure cooker and cooked for 18 minutes under pressure.
- Cook the lardons: While the potatoes are steaming, cook the lardons in a pan over medium heat until cooked through and golden on some sides.
- Serve: Once the potatoes are done, put each item in its own bowl on the table so that each person can take the amount they would like. The dish is eaten by taking some potatoes on your plate, then topping with some fromage blanc, then lardons and chives. Lastly season with salt and pepper. Serve with a lettuce salad.
Notes
- Options to replace the lardons include pork belly or thick-cut bacon, cut into matchsticks.
- Substitutes for fromage blanc include Greek yogurt, a 50-50 mix of sour cream and non-fat Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, or quark cheese.