Easy Cassoulet Recipe with White Beans and Garlic Breadcrumbs (2024)

FAQs

What is the best bean for cassoulet? ›

The Best Beans for Cassoulet

Cassoulet is traditionally made with dried white beans like flageolet or regional specialty beans like these ones from Tarbais. It might be a stretch to locate these beans in your local market, but great northern beans, navy beans, or cannellini beans are all great alternatives.

The cassoulet needs to bake uncovered to develop a crisp crust. Baking sheets All of the ingredients for a cassoulet are cooked before being combined and baked again. The meat can be cooked in any number of ways; here, the pork and lamb stew meat is roasted on rimmed baking sheets so that it browns.

Cassoulet, a hearty slow-simmered stew of sausage, confit (typically duck), pork, and white beans, is one of the great hallmarks of French country cuisine. The best versions are cooked for hours until the beans and meat meld into a dish of luxuriant, velvety richness.

Add a ladle full of pork stock and put your cassoulet into the oven. Let it cook for 2 hours, pushing the crust down regularly. Sprinkle your breadcrumbs over the top, and let cook for the last hour unmolested. The crust is formed from the protein and collagen-rich stock mixing with the beans and crumbs.

Baby Lima Beans. Also called “butterbeans”, Baby Lima beans are small, smooth, and creamy with a rich, buttery texture. They're starchier than other beans and are often used in soups, stews, succotash, and casseroles, or just cooked simply with herbs and spices.

All the ingredients for a good cassoulet can be found in most grocery stores. Purists will argue that you need to find real tarbais beans but I have found white kidney beans work just as well. They will mention that there are 3 versions of true cassoulets (Castelnaudary, Carcassone, and Toulouse).

Toulouse Saucisse (Toulouse Sausage) is a fresh sausage made in Toulouse, France, in the southwest. It's a classic French pork sausage cooked with white wine and onions. Cassoulet is a fantastic way to use it. The sausage can be cooked in a variety of ways, including boiling, frying, or grilling.

Make a cornstarch slurry for a fast and easy thickener.

Use one tablespoon of cornstarch per cup of liquid you would like to thicken. Stir out all the lumps. A few minutes before your casserole is done, add it a little at a time until you are happy with the thickness.

(ˌkæsəˈlei, French kasuːˈle) noun. a white-bean stew of French origin, often containing pork, mutton, garlic sausage, and preserved goose or duck.

You can serve cassoulet on its own with a salad and bread on the side, but it's traditional to accompany it with something colorful . . . usually greens of some sort. If you're looking for a great meal to prepare for the colder weather, try making a cassoulet.

What is Toulouse signature food? ›

The city's signature dish is cassoulet, made with Toulouse sausage, white beans, confit duck, and pork rind and trotter.

If you like cassoulet, you'll love fabada. It's leaner, smokier, and—crucially—takes a fraction of the time to prepare.

Originating in the South of France, cassoulet is a profoundly hearty peasant dish that typically includes white beans, duck (or goose) confit, and sausage, through specific preparations vary from town to town. It also is supposed to take a couple of days to put together, as the flavors of the meat develop slowly.

Part of what makes cassoulet so special is the golden brown crust that forms on top of the stew near the end of the process. But when asked what forms this crust, most home cooks would probably give the wrong answer.

I'm making the Serious Eats cassoulet, which calls for dry cannellini beans. Unfortunately, none of my local stores carry them dry. They have canned cannellini, or I could get dry great northern beans which appears to be the closest substitute.

America's favorite bean is pinto beans, according to the U.S. Dry Beans Council, often used to make refried beans. Navy beans, Great Northern beans, red kidney beans and black beans round out the rest of the top five.