Typical Lyonnais Meals You Have To Try

Find out about the typical Lyonnais meals you have to try to get the best French cuisine experience

So once you know what is the base of the Lyonnais Specialities, it is a high time to find out typical for Lyon meals. As per France in general, and Lyon in particular, the main typical Lyonnais meal will consist of:

Entrée

Salade de foies de volailles (Chicken liver salad): lettuce with pan fried chicken liver
Cervelle de canut (Silk worker’s brains): a cheese spread/dip. The dish has a base of fromage blanc, seasoned with chopped herbs, shallots, salt, pepper, olive oil and vinegar.
Tripe soup (Pumpkin soup): nowadays served mainly in bouchons
Fromage de tête (Pork head cheese) – and surprise here. Head cheese is not what you think it is. It is not a dairy cheese, but a terrine or meat jelly made with flesh from the head of a calf or pig, or less commonly a sheep or cow. It is a type of cold cut.
Groins d’âne salad (literally, “donkey snout” salad): salad made with bacon and eggs
Marinated herrings
Salad de clapotons (Sheep’s trotters salad)
Tête de veau (Poached calf’s head): usually made of beef, veal or calf’s brains
Salade Lyonnaise: green salad served with lardons (bacon strips), croutons, mustard dressing, and a poached egg)
Gateau de volaille (Chicken liver cake)
Boudin noir: blood sausage, usually served with warm apples
Cochonnaille de porc (Cold meats): rosette, jésus, saucisson are different kind of air cured pork meat
Soupe à l’oignon Lyonnaise (Lyon onion soup): a soup with onions (obviously;-)
Fonds d’artichauts aux foie gras (Artichoke hearts with foie gras)
Saucisson de Lyon brioché (Sausage in brioche): this is the cooked sausage in a brioche
Gougères au fromage (French Cheese Puffs): great as an apperatif
Saucisson cuit (Cooked sausage): this is a boiled big sausage that could have pistachios or truffles inside and served with boiled potatoes and butter
Tripes à la lyonnaise (Assorted offal gratin): pan fried tripes in thin pieces with onions and garlic and grilled in the oven with bread crumbs. It is usually served with potatoes puree.
Cardon à la moelle (Cardoon in bone marrow) a very typical vegetable prepared in gratin with a kind of béchamel, cream and flavoured with bone marrow.

Le Plate

Quenelles (Ground fish dumplings): mixture of minced and creamed fish, chicken, or meat, sometimes combined with breadcrumbs, with a light egg binding. It is the most famous, popular and typical Lyonnais meal. Its very time consuming and difficult to make so havea look how the real chef makes them.

Coq au vin (Rooster in wine sauce): chicken, herbs and vegetables cooked in a Burgundy wine sauce; very popular in Lyon
Tablier de sapeur (Breaded Tripe): part of the beef stomach that has a typical shape of honeycomb, boiled and marinated in white wine before to be pan fried with bread crumbs

Pot au feu (Pot roast): French stew made with beef meats like oxtail or marrow bone with turnips, potatoes, leeks, celery and carrots
Poulet de Bresse aux morilles ou poulet de Bresse à la crème (Chicken thighs stuffed with morels or chicken with cream sauce) made with chicken from Bresse which is located near Lyon and so it is its speciality
Gras double (Tripe cooked with onions)
Gâteau de foies de volaille et quenelles sauce aurore (Chicken liver cake and dumplings aurora sauce)
Oeufs en Meurette (Poached Eggs in Red Wine Sauce)
Petit salé aux lentilles (Salt pork with lentils)
Poulet au vinaigre à la lyonnaise (Chicken in the vinigar sauce) make it or visit Lyonnais bouchon
Sabodet et pommes de terre à la Lyonnaise (Sabodet and potatoes Lyonnaise)
Barboton: lamp stew with potatoes and vegetables, this it a traditional dish of Saint Etienne

L’Accompagnement

Gratin Dauphinois (Gratin potatoes) a rich gratin of sliced potatoes and cream, typically made with thinly sliced and layered potatoes and cream, cooked in a buttered dish rubbed with garlic. Check out for this amazing bistro style recipe and try out or learn more on how to make a perfect gratin potatoes when you are not French…
Gratin de queues d’écrevisses (Gratin of crayfish tails)
Paillasson Lyonnais (Doormat from Lyon): a simple dish which is easy to cook as it is only made from potatoes and butter!
Paillasson de pomme de terre au jambon (Apple doormat earth Ham)
Sauce lyonnaise: a French sauce of white wine, vinegar and onions served with small cuts of meat principally for left-overs
Leeks gratin: a very popular gratin among others (pumpkin and onion)
Gratin de cardon (Cardoon gratin): made of the vegetable’s stems, which are topped with a browned crust and often served with cream

Desserts

Bugnes de Lyon (Angel Wings, Miniature beignets): typical dessert Lyon’s fritter with icing sugar. Here is the recipe.
Pralines which are made of almonds wrapped with cooked sugar and pink food colouring. This hard sweet is for eating directly or for baking more desserts. Looking great, tasting very sweet!
Tarte aux pralines (Pralines tart) Don’t try to make just visit Jocteur Boulangerie for an unforgettable experience
Brioche aux pralines (Pralines brioche)
Caramelized apples
Coussin de Lyon: a sweet specialty of Lyon composed of chocolate and marzipan. It has a pillow shape of pale green marzipan, with dark green netting, filled with a chocolate and flavoured with curacao..unusual & interesting taste from Voisin
Beignets de fleurs d’acacia (Fritters acacia flowers)
Papillotes – chocolate pralines for a Christmas period but I would eat it all year long. Thanks Revillon Chocolatier
Galette bressane / Pâte à tarte montée (sweet pie dough) Check out for the easy to follow recipe here
The Matefaim Lyonnais looks a lot like a cross between a normal cake and a traditional crêpe. It is a big French crêpe with an apple
Bresse praline pie is an another pie made with yeast and obviously pralins
Tarte au citron meringue ( Lemon meringue pie)

Wow, plenty to choose from, everything good in its specific and own way. So how does it sound to you?

Wanna come over to try it out yourself? It is an experience that you will not forget. But I also understand that sometimes it is a quite difficult to travel for some meal straight away. So what I would recommend is that you put Lyon on your list of places worth visiting and in the meantime, you will try out the Recipe Book of My Top Lyonnais Meals I have created here. Try them out & enjoy yourself & impress others….Hope you like it!