A French recipe is a tightly constrained piece of language. Every verb is either an imperative (when one person teaches another) or an infinitive (when the recipe is written down for an anonymous reader). Sequence connectors mark every step — d'abord, ensuite, puis, enfin — and quantities use the partitive in a way that catches every English speaker off guard. The vocabulary is small but precise, and it shows up identically in every cookbook from Larousse to a YouTube cooking channel.
This page walks through a friendly tu-form recipe explanation between two friends, then steps back to show the alternative infinitive register and the grammar that powers French culinary instructions.
The dialogue
Sarah : Dis, comment tu fais pour la quiche lorraine ? La tienne est toujours parfaite. Léa : C'est super simple, je te promets. D'abord, tu prends une pâte brisée — soit tu la fais maison, soit tu en achètes une au supermarché. Sarah : Je vais en acheter une, c'est plus rapide. Léa : Très bien. Ensuite, tu préchauffes le four à 180 degrés. Pendant ce temps, tu mélanges trois œufs avec 200 ml de crème fraîche dans un saladier. Sarah : Et avec quoi d'autre ? Léa : Tu ajoutes du fromage râpé — environ 100 grammes — et des lardons. Tu fais revenir les lardons à la poêle pendant cinq minutes avant de les ajouter, sinon ils sont trop gras. Sarah : D'accord. Et après ? Léa : Tu étales la pâte dans un moule, tu verses la préparation dessus, et tu mets le tout au four pendant trente minutes. Sarah : À 180 degrés, donc ? Léa : Oui, à 180 degrés, chaleur tournante si tu peux. Quand le dessus est doré, c'est prêt. Tu laisses tiédir cinq minutes avant de servir. Sarah : Génial, je vais essayer ce week-end. Merci !
A complete recipe explained one cook to another, in the conversational register that recipes take when they're spoken rather than written.
Grammar in action
Tu prends, tu mélanges, tu ajoutes — the conversational tu recipe
Léa's recipe stays in the present tense, second-person singular: tu prends, tu mélanges, tu ajoutes, tu mets. This is not the imperative — it is the indicative present used as a soft instructional form.
Why not the imperative? Because between friends, the imperative prends, mélange, ajoute would feel commanding. The present indicative tu prends, tu mélanges, tu ajoutes is exactly as instructional but reads as descriptive: "you take, you mix, you add". The reader / listener follows along as if narrated.
This is the standard register for spoken recipes among friends, on cooking videos for casual audiences, and in informal cookbooks. Switching to the imperative is a real register move:
- tu prends une pâte brisée — descriptive instruction (friendly)
- prends une pâte brisée — imperative (a touch more directive)
- prenez une pâte brisée — imperative vous (formal cookbook, TV chef)
- prendre une pâte brisée — infinitive (written cookbook style)
All four convey the same content. The choice signals the relationship between speaker and audience.
Tu prends une pâte brisée et tu la mets dans un moule.
You take a shortcrust pastry and put it in a pan.
Tu mélanges les œufs avec la crème dans un saladier.
You mix the eggs with the cream in a bowl.
Quand c'est doré, tu sors le plat du four.
When it's golden, you take the dish out of the oven.
The infinitive register — written recipes and cookbooks
When the same recipe appears in a cookbook, the verbs almost always switch to the infinitive. This is one of the rare contexts where French uses the bare infinitive as a freestanding instruction.
The Larousse-style version of Léa's recipe would read:
- Préchauffer le four à 180 degrés.
- Mélanger trois œufs avec 200 ml de crème.
- Ajouter du fromage râpé et des lardons.
- Étaler la pâte dans un moule et verser la préparation dessus.
- Cuire au four pendant trente minutes.
The infinitive register is anonymous — there is no implied "you" — and it is timeless. It works because no one in particular is being addressed: the recipe sits on the page, and any reader can pick it up.
Compare across English, French, and a textbook:
| Register | French | English equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| spoken / friendly | tu mélanges les œufs | you mix the eggs |
| imperative tu | mélange les œufs | mix the eggs |
| imperative vous | mélangez les œufs | mix the eggs (formal) |
| written / infinitive | mélanger les œufs | mix the eggs (cookbook) |
A B1 learner needs to recognize all four. For production, you'll mostly use the tu indicative (talking to friends) or the vous imperative (giving instructions in a formal context).
Préchauffer le four à 180 degrés.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. (cookbook style)
Préchauffez le four à 180 degrés.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. (formal imperative)
Tu préchauffes le four à 180 degrés.
You preheat the oven to 180 degrees. (informal spoken)
D'abord, ensuite, puis, enfin — sequence connectors
Léa's recipe is structured around explicit sequence markers: d'abord, ensuite, pendant ce temps, après. These connectors are doing real grammatical work — they tell the listener which step comes when, and they prevent ambiguity in a domain where order matters absolutely.
The standard sequence toolkit:
- d'abord — first / first of all (opens the sequence)
- ensuite — next, then (continues the sequence)
- puis — then (interchangeable with ensuite, slightly lighter)
- après — after / afterwards
- enfin — finally / lastly (closes the sequence)
- pendant ce temps — meanwhile (parallel action)
The full pattern in a recipe runs: d'abord… ensuite… puis… enfin. You can drop any of the middle markers without breaking the sequence, but d'abord and enfin are typically present at the boundaries.
A subtlety: enfin has a second meaning in spoken French — "well…" / "I mean…" — used as a hesitation marker or to introduce a correction. Il est intelligent, enfin, je trouve. ("He's smart — well, I think so.") Don't confuse the two uses.
D'abord, tu prends une pâte. Ensuite, tu mélanges les œufs. Enfin, tu mets le tout au four.
First, you take a pastry. Then, you mix the eggs. Finally, you put it all in the oven.
Pendant ce temps, tu fais revenir les lardons à la poêle.
Meanwhile, you brown the lardons in a pan.
Après vingt minutes au four, tu vérifies la cuisson.
After twenty minutes in the oven, you check the cooking.
Du fromage, des lardons, de la crème — the partitive in cooking
When Léa says tu ajoutes du fromage râpé et des lardons, every noun referring to an ingredient takes a partitive article: du fromage, des lardons, de la crème, de l'huile.
The partitive is mandatory whenever you talk about an unspecified quantity of an ingredient. English speakers consistently drop the article ("add cheese, add lardons") — this is ungrammatical in French.
The partitive forms:
- du — masculine singular: du fromage, du sel, du sucre, du beurre
- de la — feminine singular: de la crème, de la farine, de la viande, de la sauce
- de l' — before a vowel: de l'huile, de l'eau, de l'ail
- des — plural: des lardons, des œufs, des champignons
Three rules for the partitive in recipes.
1. After negation, the partitive collapses to bare de: Je n'ai pas de fromage, je ne mets pas de sel.
2. After expressions of quantity, the partitive becomes bare de: un kilo de farine, deux cents grammes de fromage, beaucoup de sel, une cuillère de sucre. The article disappears entirely after a quantifier.
3. Before an adjective preceding a plural noun, des often becomes de: de petits oignons (formal / written) vs des petits oignons (spoken). In a recipe, both forms appear.
Tu ajoutes du fromage râpé et de la crème fraîche.
You add grated cheese and fresh cream.
Il faut deux cents grammes de farine.
You need two hundred grams of flour.
Je ne mets pas de sel dans cette recette.
I don't put salt in this recipe.
Quantities, weights, and measures — the metric reflex
French recipes are entirely metric, and the conventions are tight.
- grams: 50 g, 100 grammes, 200 g de fromage
- kilos: un kilo, 1 kg de pommes de terre, deux kilos de tomates
- liters: un litre de lait, 200 ml d'eau
- temperature: 180 degrés, à 200 °C (always Celsius)
- time: 30 minutes, une heure, deux heures de cuisson
The structure is NUMBER + UNIT + de + INGREDIENT, with no article between unit and ingredient: 200 grammes de fromage (not 200 grammes du fromage).
For approximate quantities, use environ, à peu près, autour de: environ 100 grammes, à peu près une cuillère, autour de 30 minutes.
For utensils-as-measures: une cuillère à café (teaspoon), une cuillère à soupe (tablespoon), un verre (a glass-worth), une pincée (a pinch). All take de + ingredient: une pincée de sel, une cuillère à soupe d'huile.
Il faut 200 grammes de fromage et 100 ml de crème.
You need 200 grams of cheese and 100 ml of cream.
Ajoute une cuillère à soupe d'huile d'olive.
Add a tablespoon of olive oil.
Une pincée de sel suffit.
A pinch of salt is enough.
Faire revenir, faire cuire, faire chauffer — the causative faire
Léa says Tu fais revenir les lardons à la poêle. The structure faire + infinitive is the causative, and it dominates French cooking vocabulary.
Faire revenir, faire cuire, faire chauffer, faire bouillir, faire fondre — all of these are how French expresses the cook's action of causing food to undergo a change of state. The English equivalents are usually direct verbs: to brown, to cook, to heat, to boil, to melt. French breaks this into "faire (cause) + the food's action".
- faire revenir — to brown, to sauté quickly
- faire cuire — to cook
- faire chauffer — to heat
- faire bouillir — to bring to a boil
- faire fondre — to melt
- faire mijoter — to simmer
- faire dorer — to brown until golden
Note that the structure does not change with object pronouns: the pronoun goes before faire, not before the infinitive. Tu fais revenir les lardons → Tu les fais revenir.
Tu fais revenir les oignons dans un peu d'huile.
You sauté the onions in a little oil.
Fais bouillir l'eau avant d'ajouter les pâtes.
Bring the water to a boil before adding the pasta.
Tu fais fondre le beurre à feu doux.
You melt the butter on low heat.
À 180 degrés, chaleur tournante, à feu doux — oven-and-stovetop register
A French recipe gives the oven setting and the stovetop setting in a small set of fixed phrases. Memorize them as chunks.
Oven temperatures are stated as à + NUMBER + degrés: à 180 degrés, à 200 °C. The standard French baking range runs 150 °C – 220 °C. Common reference points:
- 150–160 °C — slow cooking, custards
- 180 °C — most cakes, quiches, gratins (the default temperature)
- 200–220 °C — bread, pizza, anything that needs a crisp crust
Oven modes: chaleur tournante (convection, fan-forced — the most common modern setting), chaleur traditionnelle (top + bottom heat, no fan), gril (broiler).
Stovetop heat: à feu doux (low heat), à feu moyen (medium heat), à feu vif (high heat). The preposition is always à, not sur.
Préchauffe le four à 180 degrés, chaleur tournante.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, convection.
Fais cuire à feu doux pendant vingt minutes.
Cook on low heat for twenty minutes.
Mets-le sous le gril deux minutes pour dorer le dessus.
Put it under the broiler for two minutes to brown the top.
Soit… soit… — offering alternatives
When Léa says soit tu la fais maison, soit tu en achètes une, the structure soit… soit… introduces two alternatives — equivalent to English "either… or…".
This is more elegant and slightly more formal than the everyday ou bien… ou bien…, which carries the same meaning. Both forms are common in spoken French; soit… soit… feels slightly more written.
The verbs in both clauses are usually parallel — both indicative, both same tense. Note the small word en in the second clause (tu en achètes une): en replaces de la pâte brisée, the partitive object of acheter. The numeral une refers back to the same object, working as a pronoun-like complement.
Soit tu utilises de la crème fraîche, soit tu utilises de la crème liquide.
Either you use crème fraîche, or you use liquid cream.
Soit on prend le métro, soit on y va à pied.
Either we take the metro, or we walk there.
Common mistakes
These are the predictable trip-ups for English speakers reading or following French recipes.
❌ Tu ajoutes fromage et lardons.
Incorrect — ingredients require the partitive article.
✅ Tu ajoutes du fromage et des lardons.
You add cheese and lardons.
The partitive (du, de la, de l', des) is mandatory before any unspecified quantity of an ingredient. English drops the article ("add cheese"), French does not.
❌ Cuit pour trente minutes.
Two errors: wrong tense form and wrong preposition.
✅ Cuire pendant trente minutes. (or Tu fais cuire pendant trente minutes.)
Cook for thirty minutes.
For the cookbook register, use the bare infinitive (cuire), not a participle. For duration, use pendant (or no preposition at all: trente minutes au four), not pour. Pour + duration exists but means "intended for", as in un billet pour deux jours (a ticket for two days).
❌ Mettre dans le four à 350 degrés.
Wrong scale — French ovens use Celsius, not Fahrenheit.
✅ Mettre au four à 180 degrés.
Put in the oven at 180 degrees (Celsius).
French recipes are always in Celsius. 350 degrés in a French recipe would be a self-cleaning cycle, not a baking temperature. Convert: 180 °C ≈ 350 °F, 200 °C ≈ 400 °F. Note also au four (with contraction à + le), not dans le four.
❌ Tu cuis les lardons à la poêle.
Acceptable but ambiguous — *cuire* without *faire* sounds odd here.
✅ Tu fais revenir les lardons à la poêle.
You sauté the lardons in a pan.
For browning or sautéing, French wants the causative faire revenir. Cuire alone implies full cooking; faire revenir specifies the quick browning step.
❌ Premièrement tu prends la pâte.
Awkward — *premièrement* exists but is too formal for a recipe.
✅ D'abord tu prends la pâte.
First you take the pastry.
Premièrement, deuxièmement, troisièmement are reserved for written argumentation (essays, reports). For recipes, conversation, and any informal sequencing, use d'abord, ensuite, puis, enfin.
Key takeaways
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