Healthy French Recipes

For this lighter version of the classic French onion soup, freshly grated Gruyère cheese is melted over whole-grain toast and served on top of the soup.

Gwyneth Paltrow transforms one of her favorite salads, the Niçoise, into a hearty one-dish dinner by roasting tuna steaks on a tangle of beans, tomatoes, anchovies and olives.

Chef Sara Simpson flavors her lush seafood soup with port, red wine and the usual dash of licorice-scented Pernod.

Quick-cooking scallops are excellent with sweet fennel and a buttery lemon-caper sauce.

From Eric Ripert of Manhattan's Le Bernardin comes this simple, sophisticated dish that relies on store-bought mayonnaise to enrich the sublime garlicky mussel sauce.

Large shrimp make this a knife-and-fork stew. Melissa Clark spreads a garlicky French rouille on toasts for dipping in the stew.

A classic bouillabaisse often contains six or more different kinds of fish. "But for my money, you really just need lobster, a firm fish and either mussels or clams," says Ted Allen. Even in a simplified version of the Provençal seafood stew, Allen still thinks it's important to make a broth; here, he uses the lobster shells. "For a stronger seafood flavor, add a bottle of clam juice to the finished stock," he says.

Chef Hiroki Yoshitake cleverly uses grapefruit oil to boost the flavor in his chilled four-ingredient soup. Lemon olive oil is a terrific alternative, and easier to find in the US. The citrus oil is used in two different ways: for sautéing fennel before pureeing it with grapefruit juice, and for garnishing the soup before serving.

This is ratatouille imagined as beautiful little rolls of eggplant, zucchini, bell peppers, mozzarella and anchovy, all baked in a tangy, fresh tomato sauce.

Sophie Dahl fondly refers to this dish as Paris Mash because she used to make it in Paris while visiting an artist friend, Annie Morris. With herbs and a scattering of mâche (a sweet and tender green), the stewy lentils become a perfect combination of soup and salad. French green lentils work best here, because they hold their shape when cooked.

This recipe was inspired by the time chef Jeremiah Tower spent cooking with culinary genius Richard Olney in France. The vegetable combination here is only one of many, though Tower never uses more than seven vegetables and never uses tomatoes unless they are sweet cherry tomatoes.

What makes this tapenade special is the clever mix of oil- and brine-cured olives and the surprise of sweet, fresh and tangy notes from the dried figs, mint and capers.

These soufflés collapse gracefully in their molds, so there’s no need to rush them to the table; they are more like a light cake than a fragile whipped-egg-white confection.

Alain Coumont makes these ethereal, citrusy custards with wild blackberries gathered from his property. Try them with blueberries, raspberries or pitted cherries, too.

Before Chris Kronner makes this dish, he forages mussels from the nearby coast. "You have to climb down a 75-foot rock face on a rickety ladder; it's intense," he says.

Nichole Birdsall tops these crêpes with strawberries, a superfruit high in vitamin C and potent antioxidants, and a creamy, orangey sauce sweetened with a splash of Bonterra Muscat dessert wine instead of sugar.

Nikole Herriott's blog, Forty-Sixth at Grace (fortysixthatgrace.blogspot.com) has some of the web's best food photos, styled with kitchen tools she sells online. Here, her pretty halibut in parchment.

Anchoïade, a Provençal puree of anchovies, garlic and olive oil, is often slathered on grilled bread or served as a dip. Use any combination of crudités—from thin shavings of spicy black radish to florets of broccoli romanesco, a relative of broccoli and cauliflower.

Dipping a crispy toast finger (the French call it a mouillette) in a soft egg yolk has to be one of life's great pleasures. "When I was a kid, I loved it," says Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Evidently, he's still fond of it because he has created an adult version that's elegant enough to serve as a first course at a dinner party: He wraps smoked salmon around half of the toasts and sprinkles the rest with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, so it melts and forms a salty crust when baked.