Pommes Persillade

Pommes persillade is a simple French potato side dish with a zingy parsley sauce, that you can make ahead.

The potatoes are roasted until crisp and dressed with the sauce persillade just before serving, for an elegant dish that goes with everything from fish to chicken and grilled meats.

The sauce is great on meats and fish too.

Bon appétit!   

Jump to:

• ❤️ Why you will love this dish
• 🥘 Ingredients
• 🍽 Equipment
• 🔪 Instructions
• ⏲️ Cooking Time
• 🥗 Side Dishes
• 📖 Variations
• 🍣 Storage
• 🍱 Prepare in Advance
• 📋 Recipe
• French Side Dishes
• 💬 Comments

❤️ Why you will love this dish

• Use the sauce with vegetables, meat or fish.
• Make the sauce persillade in advance.
• Perfect summer sauce.
• Easy to customise.

💙 Save this recipe for later

Did you know? When you see the 💙 on the right hand side you can bookmark this page, to save it for later or share it too.

If you follow this website you will know that I love a good French potato dish! I'm not a massive rice or pasta fan and can't resist a crispy potato.

Anyway, I was busy peeling potatoes when farmer Phil pops in and asks me where I got my potatoes. I had to admit that they were from the supermarket!

Now, I've recently moved back to Lincolnshire, it's a very long story, but this area provides a huge proportion of vegetables in the UK, notably potatoes, cabbages and brassicas. So Phil leaves me with a gift of a very fresh cauliflower, (his car was full of them!), and a promise to bring me some real potatoes or 'tates' as the locals say.

Aside from Maris Pipe and Nectar, he also brought me Mariola, which I'd never heard of. These are firm and waxy potatoes, which are very yellow when you peel them and have a distinct taste, not unlike Charlotte potatoes. So, this is what I've used in the recipe. Another benefit, is that waxy potatoes stand up to par boiling and roasting better than floury potatoes when you cut them smaller.

Sauce persillade derives from the word parsley in French, which is persil. It's not really a sauce, but more of a dressing and always includes garlic and some kind of acid, such as vinegar or lemon juice. It's very similar to chimichurri or gremolata.

🥘 Ingredients

For the potatoes persillade.

• Potatoes - a waxy variety works best for this dish, as you want the pieces to keep their shape. Try red potatoes or all purpose white potatoes.
• Lemon - I prefer lemon over vinegar and, as you will need lemon zest, use an unwaxed lemon.
• Oil - for roasting, I use standard vegetable oil and extra virgin olive oil for the sauce persillade.

The printable recipe card with full ingredient quantities and instructions can be found at the bottom of the article.

🍽 Equipment

• medium baking tray
• sharp knife
• chopping board
• measuring jug
• medium saucepan with lid
• colander
• zester/microplane grater
• slotted spoon
• mini food processor - optional

🔪 Instructions

Peel the potatoes and cut into small chunks, about 3-4 centimetres.

Put the potatoes in a saucepan and cover with cold water.

Bring to the boil and simmer for about 7 minutes, then drain in a colander.

⏲️ Cooking Time

Heat the oven to 180 FAN/190 C/375 F/Gas 5.

Put the oil and butter in the roasting dish and place in the oven while it's heating up.

Add the potatoes and turn them over in the oil so that they are coated.

Roast for 20 minutes and then turn them over and roast for another twenty minutes.

While the potatoes are cooking make the sauce persillade.

Finely chop the parsley and garlic and zest and juice the lemon.

Combine all of the sauce ingredients together and season to taste.

💭 Top Tip

• I used a mini food processor to blend the ingredients together to save time. You will just need to roughly chop them first.

Pile the potatoes into a serving dish with a slotted spoon.

Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and drizzle over the sauce just before serving.

🥗 Side Dishes

Pommes persillade go with any main course, dish but they go particularly well with beef dishes.

• Bavette Steak
• Jacob's Ladder Beef
• Pheasant with Wild Mushroom Sauce
• Pork Confit
• Cod Cheeks and Chorizo
• Salmon Meunière 
• Roast Partridge
• Chicken en Croûte 
• Duck with Orange Sauce
• Chicken Supreme
• Chateaubriand
• Cannon of Lamb
• Beef Confit

📖 Variations

• Lemon juice - replace with white wine vinegar. Start with a teaspoonful and mix to taste.
• Shallot - add a tablespoon of chopped shallot to the sauce if you are using it over meat.

🍣 Storage

• Refrigerator - store roasted potatoes without the sauce for up to 5 days, in a container. Cover the sauce and use within a day, as the parsley will start to discolour.
• Freezer  - you can freeze the potatoes for up to a month.
• To reheat - reheat the potatoes in a little oil in the oven at 180 FAN/190 C/375 F/Gas 5.

🍱 Prepare in Advance

• Peel and par boil the potatoes and make the sauce up to a day in advance.

Let me know what you think in the comments or you can post a picture and tag me on Twitter @chezlereve, Instagram @chezlerevefrancais, or Facebook @chezlerevefrancais

More French potato dishes

• Cheesy Duchess Potatoes
• Gratin Potatoes Dauphinoise
• Tartiflette
• Potatoes Boulangère
• Potatoes Pavé
• Fondant Potatoes
• Tarragon Potato Salad
• Parmentier Potatoes
• Boursin Mashed Potatoes
• Potatoes Rissole
• Truffade

📋 Recipe

Food Safety

• Do not use the same utensils on cooked food, that previously touched raw meat.
• Wash hands after touching raw meat.
• Don't leave food sitting out at room temperature for extended periods.
• Never leave cooking food unattended.
• Use oils with high smoking point to avoid harmful compounds.
• Always have good ventilation when using gas.

Do you have a question or did you make the recipe? Please leave a rating as it helps other readers to discover this dish. Your name and email are required to avoid spam comments; they are never used for any purpose or shared with third parties.

However, due to spam comments, I do have to moderate each one, so don't worry if you cannot see your comment immediately. I'll publish your comments as soon as I can.