15 French Recipes for Provençal Food

Sometimes channeling the feeling of Southern France is as simple as using Herbes de Provence, the staple spice blend of oregano, rosemary, and thyme, sometimes fennel, lavender, or tarragon. Other occasions call for the dishes that originated in the idyllic region — bouillabaisse from Marseille, pissaladière and ratatouille from Nice, soupe au pistou. Channel the Mediterranean, the Southern Alps, and the Côte d’Azur with aromatics, seafood, and prime pairings. From Niçoise salad to fish stew, and plenty of proteins prepared with Herbes de Provence, these recipes are the best of Provençal food.

Niçoise Salad

Matt Taylor-Gross / Food Stylist Barrett Washburne

This classic Provençal salad combines tuna, potatoes, green beans, anchovies, hard-boiled eggs, olives, and tomatoes. Julia Child used fresh green beans and tomatoes with tinned tuna and anchovies, plus olives and capers for an extra level of piquant flavor.

Chicken Provençal

Photo by Andrew Bui / Food Styling by Max Rappaport

Simply seasoned pieces of chicken are browned until golden then simmered with a garlicky, olive-spiked, tomato pan sauce and served with crusty baguette for this bold braise from Southern France.

Roasted Tomato Pissaladière

Christopher Testani / Food Styling by Victoria Granof / Prop Styling by Thom Driver

A popular Provençal pastry, pissaladière is commonly topped with caramelized onions, olives, and anchovies. For this recipe, Martha Holmberg roasts canned whole peeled tomatoes until slightly dehydrated to give them a pleasantly chewy texture and concentrated flavor. Keep it simple with store-bought puff pastry for the crispy, light, flakey crust.

Ratatouille

Photo by Kelsey Hansen / Food Styling by Greg Luna / Prop Styling by Stephanie Hunter

Celebrate summer with this stew of tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, onions, and eggplant from Nice. Parisian Rebekah Peppler cooks each vegetable separately and finishes the stew with a generous portion of rosé to meld the flavors together.

Anthony Bourdain’s Soupe de Poisson

Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Julian Hensarling / Prop Styling by Julia Bayless

The saffron, orange, fennel, and Pernod in this soup are classic flavors from seafood soups made in the South of France. Anthony Bourdain served the soup with toasts slathered with garlicky rouille.

Bouillabaisse

Chloe Crespi Photography

Make a quick-cooking, deeply flavored seafood broth from scratch for classi bouillabaisse. Layer a base of aromatics with fresh snapper, scallops, shrimp, and a mix of Pernod and dry white wine for long-simmered flavor.

Provençal Vegetable Soup

Get exceptional flavor from pistou in this vegetable-packed soup from legendary French chef Eric Ripert.

South of France Roast Chicken

Channel Provençal flavors with Herbes de Provence, the blend of lavender, thyme, and fennel, for these 50-minute roasted chicken legs from Ian Knauer.

Slow-Cooked Duck with Green Olives and Herbes de Provence

Paula Wolfert slow-cooks duck with aromatics until it’s as tasty and tender as confit, then broils it until the skin is shatter-crisp.

Provençal Grilled Lamb

Château de Campuget’s Mathilde Dalle and chef Patrick Thibaud use the quintessentially Provençal combination of rosemary, thyme, and garlic to flavor this 45-minute grilled lamb.

Seared Tuna with Sauce Vierge

Evoke the flavors of southern France with Eric Ripert’s light, easy tuna recipe. He crusts the fish with herbes de Provence, then drizzles his take on sauce vierge, an oil flavored with sun-dried tomatoes, basil, and capers.

Brandade de Morue au Gratin (Whipped Salt Cod Gratin)

This Provençal dish is a great example of how to elevate modest ingredients like salt cod and potatoes — in this case, by whipping them with milk, olive oil, and garlic until luxuriously silky. Jacques Pépin serves the dish au gratin — browned, with cheese on top.

Classic Pistou

Pistou is the olive oil-based basil sauce from the south of France that closely resembles Ligurian pesto. There’s only one way to make true pistou — by hand, tearing basil leaves, then grinding the leaves against the side of a mortar with a pestle to puree them into a silky, creamy sauce.

Provençal Eggplant-Tomato Gratin

Christopher Hirsheimer

Roast ripe summer tomatoes and eggplant with herbs and olives in this recipe from Frank Stitt, who worked for the late great cookbook author Richard Olney in Provence, France.