What is a Salade Liégeoise?
How do you make a Salade Liégeoise?
As every Belgian knows, a Salade Liégeoise is a very typical warm salad made with three basic ingredients: green beans (string beans), bacon and potatoes. It comes from the city and region of Liège, near the German-Dutch borders with Belgium.
Often we add sautéed onions and then season it with a little vinegar or a combination of vinegars, such as Sherry, raspberry and red wine vinegars. I usually use my homemade red wine vinegar with a mix of cranberry or raspberry vinegar to add a fruity touch.
Special touches
Although a Salade Liégeoise is rather straight-forward and simple, it can be spruced up a bit, if desired. For instance, you can add a sliced hard-boiled egg or even a couple poached eggs on top, along with some chopped walnuts. In the more prosperous parts of Liège, some people traditionally add a little cream to the end of the finished salad. This dish is particularly tasty with new potatoes if you can find them at a local farmers’ market.
How do you Serve a Salade Liégoise?
A Salad Liégeoise is generally served as a main course during colder months. However, I find it best in late spring and summer when new potatoes and freshly harvested green beans are more abundant.
Make this Salade Liégeoise soon and let me know your comments. You do not need much time or money to make this salad. Yet, serving this salad will change your family’s routine and will likely appeal to almost everyone, except vegetarians and vegans, of course.
Vegetarians and vegans can substitute the bacon with smoked tofu (see notes below in the recipe).
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Salade Liégeoise: Green Beans and Bacon
Ingredients
- 1000 grams potato new potatoes if you can
- 1000 grams string beans / green beans
- 500 grams bacon smoked or normal bacon. Weight before rinds removed.
- 1-2 onion
- 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 2-3 tbsp raspberry vinegar or another fruit vinegar such as cranberry vinegar
- 1-2 tbsp olive oil extra virgin
- 2 apple optional
Instructions
- Cook the potatoes until a fork can go into them but they remain firm
- Towards the end of the cooking of the potatoes, put the green beans (string beans) in a steamer pot above the potatoes and steam until they are firm yet cooked. If you don't have a pot that goes over the potatoes, then cook the string beans in a separate pot, either steamed or in some water. I prefer steamed because they retain their shape better.
- While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the bacon. Remove the rind from the bacon and then cut the bacon along the short side with a scissors or sharp knife into pieces. Put the olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Dice the onions and put them with the bacon pieces in the pan with the oil. [After a couple minutes peel and dice an apple and add it to the pan.] Continue cooking over medium heat until everything is cooked well, yet the onions and apples retain some shape.
- Slice the cooked potatoes into nice sized pieces and put in a bowl. Drain and add the green beans (string beans) and the bacon.
- Put some red wine vinegar or raspberry vinegar into the pan and put on a low heat for approximately 1 minute so the vinegar cleans your pan and mixes in with all the remaining grease and flavor [You can use other flavored vinegars. I use sometimes cranberry vinegar along with some homemade red wine vinegar]. Use a spatula to scrape the vinegar mixture on top of your salad bowl. Add more vinegar if needed. Add a splash of oil and a pinch of salt and pepper.
- Mix and serve!
My family is Belgian and my mother would make a Dijon mustard, finely chopped onions, mayo, white vinegar and olive oil vinaigrette for the salade liégeoise.
Hi Janie, thanks for your feedback. I’ve never seen it with a mayo-base vinaigrette, but why not? I really love however sweet-sour combination of the raspberry vinaigrette combined with the sherry vinegar, especially with the bacon (lardons). Yum yum!
I grew up with this as my mother was Belgian. We always ate it in the Summer. It is my favorite salad. Everyone that I have ever made it for loves it.
Hello Joan, I’m glad to hear we share a common love. Have you tried this recipe? If so, how does it compare to your memories of your mother’s salad?
This was my Dads signature dish when the family got together. He didn’t add apples, and he was generous with the red wine vinegar. He never wrote the recipe down, and he called it by a different name that sounded like “Salad du Faif”…which is what we now call it but we don’t know for sure if that’s what it was. Do you know what it could have been? It was handed down verbally from my great grandparents, whose surname was Dinant, and they came from Belgium.
Hi Donna, thanks for your story. The name that you mention does not ring a bell with me. There are several variations, I’m sure. Some people use a different kind of vinegar, for instance. Other than the apples, were there any other differences?
I have made this dish over and over for years now, adding fresh cream before serving. It was my late South African husband’s all-time favourite dish.. He used to call it “Belgian Mush”.. It is easy, quick and oh so yummy.
Un vrai regal 👌🏼
Thanks so much, Christiane! It’s one of my favorites too!
Lekker lekker lekker! Made this tonight for my Belgian husband. He loved it. It was delicious. I opted for the boiled eggs on top.