Vegetarian Tartiflette: Easy Cheesy Potato Gratin
Who’s up for a hearty, rustic, cheesy potato gratin? This vegetarian tartiflette recipe is rich, gooey and easy-to-make. With cooked potatoes covered in lots of melted cheese, it’s a real crowd pleaser. Perfect for refuelling after a long winter’s walk.
My aunt made this dish for a family gathering recently. All you could hear at the dinner table were oohs and aahs as we all tucked in with relish. And I was the only vegetarian there.
Dive Right In
- What Is Tartiflette?
- Why Make Vegetarian Tartiflette?
- Vegetarian Tartiflette With Broad Beans
- Ingredients
- How To Make Vegetarian Tartiflette
- Other Potato Recipes You Might Like
- Keep In Touch
- Pin It
- The Recipe
What Is Tartiflette?
Originating from France’s Haute-Savoie region, tartiflette is a potato gratin. The recipe is a relatively recent one. It was dreamt up as a 1980s marketing concept as a way to sell Reblochon cheese. Having said that it’s based on a traditional dish called péla.
The name péla comes from the long-handled pan it was cooked in, a pelagic (shovel).
Tartiflette is now mostly known as an après ski dish in the French Alps. It’s similar, though slightly more elaborate than Swiss raclette. Basically it’s potatoes and melted cheese. What’s not to love?
The ingredients are very simple. There are only four of them: potatoes, Reblochon cheese, onions and lardons. Lardons are basically bacon bits.
Why Make Vegetarian Tartiflette?
Rich, filling and fortifying, this baked dish of hot potatoes and gooey melted cheese is a real winter hit. Crispy rinds and sweet caramelised onions just add to the fun.
Comforting and Hearty – This gratin is the perfect warm, comforting meal for chilly days, especially after a long walk. Or, if there’s enough snow, you can use it to refuel après ski. Gooey, cheesy goodness is paired with layers of sweet caramelised onions, tender potatoes and the secret weapon: broad beans.
Pure Indulgence – Tartiflette is deliciously indulgent with its melty, oozy cheese that everyone craves so much. Add potatoes to the mix and it’s comfort all the way. Then there’s the caramelised onions. They’re boosted with additional umami flavours to replace the non-vegetarian lardons. It’s the perfect dish for gatherings or special cozy dinners.
Nutrient Boost with Broad Beans – The addition of broad beans provides an extra layer of flavour and a boost of plant-based protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals. The result is a dish that’s not only more nutritious, but also more satisfying.
Simple Dish – This vegetarian tartiflette is made with only four main ingredients and no fancy cooking is required. Fry onions, boil potatoes and beans, then bung everything in the oven. Simple!
Twist on Tradition – The addition of broad beans, adds a unique twist to the classic tartiflette recipe. They add flavour, texture and nutrition. Other vegetarian options to replace the traditional lardons include mushrooms or smoked tofu.
Vegetarian-Friendly – Vegetarians don’t need to miss out on this fabulous French recipe. My version offers a deliciously, rich, meat-free alternative to traditional tartiflette, which includes bacon or lardons.
Vegetarian Tartiflette With Broad Beans
This vegetarian tartiflette is a riff on my aunt’s recipe. She uses broad beans instead of the traditional lardons when catering for vegetarian members of the family. Broad beans may sound a little odd, but goodness, they work well in this dish.
Camembert melts beautifully over the potatoes and beans in this most luscious of gratins. And although the rinds don’t melt, they bake on top of the gratin and become deliciously crispy.
For the traditional smoky lardon element, I fry the onions with a pinch of smoked salt and a little smoked paprika. I also add a soupçon of soy sauce.
I like to serve my tartiflette with a sharp non-mayonnaise homemade coleslaw to cut through the richness. However, a crisp green salad and glass of dry white wine is more traditional.
Some less traditional recipes include cream, but that seems like overkill to me and isn’t necessary. The cheese melts as it heats up and creates its own creamy sauce. When you dish it up, most of the potatoes and beans are covered in glorious melty cheese.
There are also some recipes that require the potatoes to be fried after they’ve been boiled. Again, it’s not necessary and is another step which makes a simple dish more complicated than it needs to be.
Try it my way and let me know what you think.
Ingredients, Additions And Substitutions
Although tartiflette is traditionally only made with four ingredients, I’ve added a couple of extras, to make up for the flavour that normally comes from lardons. I’ve also added broad beans.
Broad Beans (Fava Beans)
Although broad beans (fava beans) are no longer in season in this part of the world, it’s now quite easy to get hold of frozen ones. I buy them from my local supermarket. They work a treat as they’re picked young and are not in the least bit tough or bitter. Something that’s not always guaranteed with fresh ones.
They make a really good addition to tartiflette as they add flavour and texture and also help to bulk out the dish. If you’ve never tried melted cheese with broad beans before, you’re in for a treat.
They’re also highly nutritious. Various vitamins, minerals, soluble fibre and plant protein abound. They’re good for heart health, the digestive system, immune defence and so much more. (ref: Healthline)
If you don’t like broad beans or can’t get hold of them, use green beans instead and cut them into lengths of three to four centimetres (one to one and a half inches). Alternatively, leave the beans out altogether.
Cheese
Reblochon is the traditional tartiflette cheese. However, it contains animal rennet, so is not suitable for vegetarians. It’s also quite hard to get hold of and expensive. If you’re not worried about animal rennet though, it’s worth using for special occasions.
For a more everyday vegetarian version of tartiflette, I use a vegetarian friendly camembert. It melts beautifully. But do look out, traditional camembert is the most common and it’s not suitable for vegetarians either. Most supermarket own brands, however, are made with vegetarian rather than animal rennet.
Most camembert type cheeses are sold in rounds of 250g (9 ounces) in the UK. This is what I’ve used for this tartiflette recipe. However, if you can get a slightly larger cheese, so much the better. A 300g one (10 ½ ounces) is ideal.
If you find camembert too strong, you can swap it for brie instead.
Onions
Caramelised onions are essential for this vegetarian version of tartiflette. They add seasoned sweetness which offsets the richness of the cheese and brings the whole dish to life.
Use ordinary brown onions (yellow onions). They have a more pronounced flavour than other onions and a good balance of sweet and savoury notes.
Potatoes
Ideally you want firm salad potatoes or waxy ones such as Charlotte and Nicola for this recipe. However, a good all rounder such as Nadine, Vivaldi, Maris Piper and King Edward are good to use too. Just don’t go for floury ones or they’ll end up mushy. I used Nectar.
My aunt makes hers with new potatoes, which makes tartiflette even more delicious.
Seasoning
As an alternative to lardons, I’ve added smoked paprika and tamari. They add the smoky and umami elements to the dish that would otherwise be lacking. Tamari is the queen of soy sauces, but by all means swap it for you favourite if you don’t have any.
Garlic is not traditional, but I like to add a little to echo the pungent notes of this dish.
For a little extra pizzaz, there’s a sneaky drop of wine to deglaze the pan. White wine is actually an ingredient in traditional tartiflette recipes. As I didn’t have any I used sweet sherry instead. This works really well as it helps to sweeten the onions.
Alternative Vegetarian Ingredients
If you don’t like the idea of adding broad beans, mushrooms or smoked tofu make good alternatives to lardons.
Fry mushrooms until caramelised and add the smoked paprika and tamari at the end.
If you decide to use smoked tofu, you won’t need the paprika. Just fry the tofu until crisp and finish with the tamari.
How To Make Vegetarian Tartiflette
Tartiflette is one of the easiest potato gratin dishes you can make. It requires a few pans as well as a baking dish, but as long as you have a dishwasher, there’s not much work involved at all.
Please refer to the recipe card at the bottom of this post for full instructions, timings and quantities of ingredients used.
Step 1. Fry Onions
The longer the onions fry, the sweeter and more caramelised they will be. So start by getting them on before you worry about the potatoes.
Peel the onions, then halve them. Slice each half as finely as you can.
Warm the oil in a frying pan over a low to moderate heat. Add the onions and fry, stirring occasionally, for about twenty minutes or until they’re well on their way to caramelisation.
Crush or grate in the garlic and add the salt. Fry the onions for a further couple of minutes. Again give an occasional stir.
Add the paprika, tamari and wine and stir again. Stir-fry for a further minute, then remove from the heat.
Step 2. Prepare Potatoes
Whilst the onions are frying, prepare the potatoes. There’s no need to peel them, just give them a good scrub. Much of the goodness is in the skin and peeling potatoes, unless the skins are blemished, is unnecessary.
Chop them into largish chunks and place in a large lidded pan. Cover them with cold water, add a good pinch of salt and bring to the boil. Simmer with the lid on for fifteen minutes or until the chunks are just tender, but still firm.
Test for doneness with a fork. If it slips in easily, the potatoes are ready. But be careful not to over boil them or they’ll be too soft when you tip them into the baking dish and won’t hold their shape.
Step 3. Boil Beans
Whilst the onions are frying, you also need to boil the beans. If using fresh beans, remove them from their outer pods first. Frozen beans are best cooked from frozen.
Bring a pan of lightly salted water to the boil. You only need enough water to cover the beans. Add the beans to the pan, cover with a lid and boil lightly for a few minutes until tender.
4. Layer Up Baking Dish
Once you’ve cooked the potatoes and beans, preheat the oven. Then layer up your baking dish.
Lightly butter an ovenproof dish measuring roughly 20 cm (8 inch) square. A round, oval or rectangular dish is fine as long as the dimensions are similar. If doubling, tripling or quadrupling the quantities, you’ll need to size-up the dish proportionally.
Scatter all of the onions over the bottom of the dish. Layer half of the potatoes over the onions, followed by all of the beans. Top with the remaining potatoes.
Using a sharp knife, cut the camembert in half horizontally so that you have two rounds.
Place these on top of the potatoes rind-side-up as the final layer.
Pop the dish into the oven and bake until everything is hot and the cheese is melted and bubbling.
Step 5. Serve
Leave the tartiflette to stand for five minutes, then serve whilst it’s still hot and before the cheese has a chance to start firming up. Scatter with finely chopped fresh parsley just before serving, if liked.
Serve with a green salad on the side and glass of dry white wine for the true Haute-Savoie experience. Or try a light, but sharp homemade coleslaw.
Other Potato Recipes You Might Like
- Easy Spanish tortilla
- Leftover mashed potato omelette
- Mexican potatoes
- Parsnip & potato mash
- Simple potato salad
- Rosemary chips
Keep in Touch
Thank you for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this vegetarian tartiflette, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do you have any recommendations or tips for making cheesy potato gratins?
Please rate the recipe. If you post pictures of your creations on social media, tag me @choclette8 so I can see them.
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Choclette x
Vegetarian Tartiflette. PIN IT.
Vegetarian Tartiflette: Easy Cheesy Potato Gratin
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 onions finely sliced
- 2 clove garlic grated
- 1 pinch sea or rock salt (I use smoked salt)
- ½ tsp smoked paprika
- 1 tsp tamari (affiliate link) or your preferred soy sauce
- 1 tbsp white wine (I used sweet sherry)
- 1 kg potatoes scrubbed
- 250 g broad beans podded or frozen (I used frozen baby beans)
- 250 g camembert cheese one without animal rennet
Instructions
- Warm the oil in a frying pan over a low to moderate heat. Add the onions and fry, stirring occasionally, for about twenty minutes or until starting to caramelise.1 tbsp olive oil, 2 onions
- Add the garlic and salt and fry for a further couple of minutes. Again give an occasional stir.2 clove garlic, 1 pinch sea or rock salt
- Add the paprika, tamari and wine and stir again. Fry for a further minute or so, then remove from the heat.½ tsp smoked paprika, 1 tsp tamari (affiliate link), 1 tbsp white wine
- Whilst the onions are frying, boil the potatoes. Chop them into largish chunks, about 4 cm (1½ inch) and place in a large lidded pan. Cover with cold water, add a good pinch of salt and bring to the boil. Simmer with the lid on for fifteen minutes or until the chunks are just tender, but still firm.1 kg potatoes
- Also whilst the onions are frying, cook the beans in a little salted boiling water until tender. This should only take a few minutes (3-5).250 g broad beans
- Preheat the oven to oven to 200℃ (180℃ fan, 400℉, Gas 6).
- Grease an ovenproof dish measuring roughly 20 cm (8inch) square (or similar).
- Scatter the onions over the bottom of the dish. Layer half of the potatoes over the onions, followed by all of the beans. Top with the remaining potatoes.
- Cut the cheese in half horizontally so that you have two rounds. Place these on top of the potatoes rind-side-up.250 g camembert cheese
- Bake for 15-20 minutes or until everything is hot and the cheese is melted and bubbling.
- Leave to stand for five minutes, then serve whilst hot and before the cheese has a chance to start firming up. Scatter with finely chopped fresh parsley just before serving, if liked.
This is a fabulous recipe. I amended the proportions slightly as I wanted to feed 5 (including a hungry young man) so I increased the potatoes to 1.5kg, increased the onions from 2 to 3, doubled the smoked paprika, soy sauce and white wine and used 2 Camembert. Yummo! I thought I should pass on the comments from my friends and family who thought it was absolutely delicious. Well done. xx
Thank you so much for the feedback Jill. It tastes better than the sum of its parts I reckon. But then it’s hard to go wrong with potatoes and cheese.
oh yum I love caramelised onions! this dish looks so tasty. cheers, sherry
Totally with you there Sherry and the melted cheese and potatoes makes them even more delicious.