A taste of our travels – vegetarian tartiflette recipe {The Alps}. We love our winter trips to the slopes and skiing with kids. And part of the fun of this season is most definitely the food.
I’ve realised a proper winter, complete with warming, cheery food really does help me get through this often grey season and keep the winter blues away.
Our favourite dishes, from our trips to the Alps, are the cheese ones – fondue, raclette and tartiflette are all perfect comfort food after a day out skiing. As non-meat eaters we have come up with our own vegetarian tartiflette which we love whatever the season.
👩💻 About the author – Nichola is a family travel expert (and food fanatic) and has written for The Guardian, The Telegraph, LonelyPlanet Magazine and Wanderlust amongst many others. She’s spent over a decade travelling the world with her children and loves recreating recipes from those travels.
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Tartiflette is one of the most iconic dishes of the French Alps, particularly associated with the Savoie region in eastern France. While it feels like a centuries-old mountain classic, it was actually popularised in the 1980s by producers of Reblochon cheese as a way of promoting the regional product. Despite its relatively modern fame, the ingredients themselves – potatoes, cheese, cream and onions – are deeply rooted in Alpine farmhouse cooking, where hearty, calorie-rich meals were essential fuel for cold winters and hard physical work.
Our vegetarian tartiflette is filled with lovely gooey cheese and packed full of onions and garlic for a keep-away-colds kick. Rich, creamy and oh so filling after a day out on the slopes. It’s perfectly acceptable, in my opinion, to have after a nice walk out in the British countryside too.
In traditional mountain restaurants across resorts in the French Alps – from small village eateries to bustling ski chalets – tartiflette is almost always on the menu during ski season. It’s the kind of dish you order after hours in ski boots, cheeks stinging from the cold, and it arrives at the table still bubbling in its dish. That sense of Alpine comfort is exactly what we try to recreate at home with this vegetarian version.
This is warming, feel-good winter food at its best. Served up with a big chunk of bread, some sharp pickles, a crisp salad and you’ll be in to dinner-heaven territory.
The beauty of tartiflette lies in its simplicity. Potatoes act as the perfect sponge for cream and melted cheese, while the onions and garlic add sweetness and depth. In traditional recipes, lardons (small strips of bacon) are used, but vegetarian alternatives work brilliantly and still provide that savoury contrast to the creamy sauce. This makes it an ideal vegetarian comfort food recipe that doesn’t feel like a compromise.
Ingredients:
- 600 grams of potatoes
- Two leeks
- Two large onions – peeled and chopped
- Two shallots – peeled and chopped
- Two garlic cloves – peeled and crushed
- 200 grams of Cheese. The classic tartiflette recipe will always call for the locally produced reblochon cheese which isn’t vegetarian. If you can find a veggie Camembert or brie this would work just as well as a reblochon as it is a creamy cheese. We used a regular cheddar cheese for our version.
- 150 grams of vegetarian bacon
- 100 ml of cream (we used soya cream)
- Salt and pepper to taste
A note on cheese: Reblochon is a washed-rind, semi-soft cheese with a nutty, creamy flavour that melts beautifully. If you can source a vegetarian-friendly soft rind cheese, it will give you a more traditional Alpine flavour. However, cheddar creates a stronger, sharper finish which we also love. You can even combine cheeses – a layer of soft Brie-style cheese for melt and a sprinkling of mature cheddar for depth.
A taste of our travels, vegetarian tartiflette recipe – What to do:
- Peel and slice the potatoes (use a mandolin slicer for consistent thin slices).
- Place in boiling water for 8 -10 minutes.
- Slice the onions, leeks and shallots and chop the garlic.
- Fry it all together in a pan for five minutes.
- Slice the vegetarian bacon into thin strips and add to the fried vegetables.
- Cook them all for a further five minutes.
- Slice the cheese into small pieces.
- Layer the bottom of a large baking dish with half of the potatoes and then add half of the vegetable and bacon mix.
- Sprinkle with half of the cheese and season with salt and pepper.
- Repeat with another layer of potatoes, a layer of the vegetable and bacon mix and sprinkle with cheese again.
- Pour the soya cream across the top layer making sure it is all covered.
- Bake in a pre-heated oven (180 degrees) for 50 minutes until golden and bubbling.
- Serve with big chunks of bread and salad.
Vegetarian tartiflette top tips
Top tip: allow the tartiflette to rest for 5–10 minutes after removing it from the oven. This helps it firm up slightly, making it easier to serve while still keeping that delicious creamy texture.
If you want to bring even more Alpine authenticity to your vegetarian tartiflette, try rubbing the baking dish with a cut clove of garlic before layering the ingredients. This is a traditional technique in many Savoyard dishes and subtly enhances the flavour.
You can also add a splash of white wine to the onion mixture while frying. Traditionally a dry Savoy wine would be used, which deepens the flavour and adds a gentle acidity to balance the richness of the cheese and cream.
Tartiflette is often served in ski chalets alongside cornichons and pickled onions. The sharpness cuts through the richness and stops the dish from feeling too heavy. A simple green salad dressed with a mustard vinaigrette works beautifully too.
What we love most about this vegetarian tartiflette recipe is that it transports us straight back to snowy mountain evenings. Food has an incredible way of holding memories: the scrape of skis on ice, the glow of mountain restaurants at dusk, the chatter of tired children recounting their day on the slopes. Even when made in a British kitchen on a rainy January evening, this dish brings a little taste of the Alps to the table.
More of our vegetarian recipes
For more French recipes check out our vegetarian Toulouse sausage and lentil stew. Check out more of our travel inspired recipes here.
Find our recipe card for vegetarian tartiflette here
Vegetarian tartiflette recipe
Ingredients
Method
- Peel and slice the potatoes (use a mandolin slicer for consistent thin slices). Place in boiling water for 8 -10 minutes.
- Slice the onions, leeks and shallots and chop the garlic. Fry it all together in a pan for five minutes.
- Slice the vegetarian bacon into thin strips and add to the fried vegetables. cook them all for a further five minutes.
- Slice the cheese into small pieces.
- Layer the bottom of a large baking dish with half of the potatoes and then add half of the vegetable and bacon mix.
- Sprinkle with half of the cheese and season with salt and pepper.
- Repeat with another layer of potatoes, a layer of the vegetable and bacon mix and sprinkle with cheese again.
- Pour the soya cream across the top layer making sure it is all covered.
- Bake in a pre-heated oven (180 degrees) for 50 minutes until golden and bubbling.
- Serve with big chunks of bread and salad.
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Didn’t change anything – worked so well and was a big hit, even among the meat eaters! Thank you for another great recipe
Delicious! We all loved it.