Bastille Day commemorates the 1798 Storming of the Bastille, a key turning point in the French Revolution. In France, it's celebrated much in the same way as Americans observe Independence Day — as an opportunity to savor summer with friends and family over a casual yet delicious seasonal menu. To get in on the festivities, start your morning with a buttery slice of toasted brioche or ham-and-cheese-filled buckwheat crêpes. Perhaps pack some pan bagnat for a picnic lunch along with a variety of dips and spreads. For dinner, keep things simple with steak frites made in the air fryer or quick-cooking branzino fillets. And for the finale, try an easy plum galette with ice cream or go all out with a grand strawberry-studded Fraisier Cake. These are our best Bastille Day recipes for a delicious celebration.
Pan Bagnat
Bastille Day is a fine occasion for a picnic — and this specialty from Nice is just the thing to load into your basket. Essentially a Niçoise salad in sandwich form, the real beauty of pan bagnat is that it can be made ahead and actually benefits from resting a couple hours so the vinaigrette can permeate all the layers.
Chicken Liver Pâté
Jacques Pépin's silky-smooth chicken liver pâté is simple to make. Also picnic-ready, it's perfect with a co*cktail or glass of wine before a meal.
Grilled Onion Lyonnaise
This riff on a classic salade Lyonnaise takes the iconic dish from great to even greater. Top the finished salad of frisée; crisp, meaty bacon lardons; grilled red torpedo onions; and a mustard vinaigrette with poached eggs.
Air Fryer Steak Frites
Yes, you absolutely can use your air fryer to make restaurant-level steak frites with herbed compound butter. The tender steak browns on top as it cooks, while the fatty pieces around the edges cook down to be irresistible bites. While the steak rests, cook the fries, then top everything with the herb-packed compound butter.
Buckwheat Crêpes
Why not start Bastille Day with these nutty, savory crêpes from the Brittany region of France? They're topped with ham, Gruyére, and a sunny-side-up egg. To ease your workload in the morning, prepare the batter the night before or cook and freeze the unadorned crêpes in advance.
Vichyssoise
Topped with crunchy garlic croutons, shaved pecorino Romano cheese, and a scattering of sliced scallions, this chilled potato-leek soup deserves a spot in your summer rotation.
Socca with Zucchini and Olives
Socca, aka farinata, is a crisp, tender pancake made from chickpea flour. Unlike the versions in Nice, which are cooked in copper pans, this one is baked in a cast-iron skillet before it's topped with a summery marinated squash salad.
Fraisier Cake
If you want to go all out for Bastille Day, this classic French cake is the one to make. It typically consists of a genoisesponge cake, mousseline cream, strawberries, and amarzipantopping. In our version, we skip the marzipan and let the mousseline cream be the star. With its fluffy and creamy texture and vanilla flavor, the cake is the perfect foil to sun-ripened strawberries.
Ratatouille Slab Pie
The beautiful lattice top on this vegetarian showstopper encases vibrant summer squash, eggplant, tomatoes, and fresh herbs. Precooking the vegetable filling is key to concentrating flavor and releasing moisture that could otherwise cause a soggy crust.
Radish Tartines with Green Butter
Radish and turnip greens are whipped with sweet butter, garlic, and lemon zest to create a delicious, silky spread for these tartines, while the spicy, paper-thin radishes and turnips make the ideal topping. Finished with crunchy sea salt, these are a great appetizer or light lunch.
Branzino with Mesclun and Tomato–Herbes de Provence Vinaigrette
The sweet, delicate flavor of branzino pairs beautifully with a summery tomato and mixed herb vinaigrette for a meal that comes together in just half an hour.
Midsummer Fruit Tart
Celebrate Bastille Day with summer's best fruit in this tart from Julia Child. Its sugar cookie-like base and tangy, creamy cheesecake filling make it the perfect vehicle for showcasing whatever peak-season fruit you fancy.
Bacon, Cheddar, and Onion Quiche
While bacon, onions, and cheddar aren’t exactly surprising ingredients in a classic quiche, the addition of crème fraîche and chopped dill make this recipe from chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten feel entirely fresh and elegant.
Salmon Niçoise Salad
Tender salmon, briny olives, crisp-tender green beans, and satisfying potatoes all soak up the zippy, perfectly balanced dressing in this variation on a classic tuna Niçoise. Don't skip the anchovy garnish — it provides pops of umami saltiness that take this salad over the top.
Scallop Grenobloise
Beautifully seared scallops with a golden crust are served in a classic French sauce popping with acidity from lemon, brininess from capers, and slight warmth from mildly piquant jalapeños.
Ham-Jam Sandwiches
Full of concentrated fruit flavor and bright acid from the Gamay grape-based wine, homemade Blueberry-Beaujolais Jam provides the perfect contrast to the goat cheese and butter here. Slathered on a baguette and topped with ribbons of salty prosciutto, this summertime all-star is both easy and elegant.
Plum Galette
Embrace the rustic charm of a galette to showcase seasonal fruit. The dough in this recipe is buttery, flaky, and very forgiving — and it comes together in 10 seconds in a food processor. Don't forget the ice cream!
Blackberry Kir Royale
It's not a celebration until the Champagne flutes come out. With just two ingredients plus a garnish of fresh blackberries, this party-ready co*cktail comes together in minutes.
Bouillabaisse
Chef Ludo Lefebvre’s bouillabaisse starts with a quick-cooking, but 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.
Le Grand (Saffron) Aïoli
This make-ahead poached vegetable and shrimp spread is both gorgeous and refreshing on a summer day. Garlicky aïoli infused with saffron provides a pop of flavor and color as a delicious dip for those crisp-tender veggies and succulent bites of shrimp.
Almond, Elderflower, and Lime Travel Cakes
These sweet bites are easy to pack up for parties and picnics. Enriched with almond paste and bathed in lime icing that's laced with St-Germain, pastry chef William Werner calls his creation "gussied-up pound cakes."
Extra-Rich Brioche
A slice of brioche is satisfying any time of day. Enriched with buttermilk, eggs, and lots of glorious butter, this tender loaf is pure luxury. Enjoy it on its own slathered with more butter and jam or use it to make French toast or sandwiches.
Poulet au Vinaigre (Chicken in Vinegar Sauce)
Chef Paul Bocuse's irresistible chicken boasts big, bold flavor with a focus on overall lightness; it comes together with just a handful of ingredients and simple directions. This version swaps fresh tomatoes for tomato paste, uses lower-acid rice wine vinegar in place of red wine vinegar, and significantly reduces the amount of butter.
Black Olive Tapenade with Figs and Mint
Jacques Pépin’s tasty tapenade combines two types of olives with dried figs and mint. This goes well as a sandwich spread, a side for crudité, or a topping for crostini.
Provençal Vegetable Soup
This vegetable-packed soup from star chef Eric Ripert gets exceptional flavor from pistou, the pesto-style basil puree that’s served with it. To make a vegetarian version, omit the ham and substitute vegetable stock for the chicken stock.
My Merguez with Pork and Grilled Tortilla Bread
"Along with other North African dishes, merguez is very popular in France. That little lamb sausage is a classic at any backyard barbecue or picnic there, as popular as the hot dog is in the U.S.," says Jacques Pépin. He forms his sausages into small patties to serve as an appetizer, but they can also be layered onto a toasted baguette along with bell peppers and onions for a typical Bastille Day offering.
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