Are you wondering what to serve with ratatouille? This versatile dish and can be served as a main dish or as a side.
Ratatouille is a classic French vegetable stew using summer vegetables like eggplant, zucchini, red pepper, and tomatoes. If you go to the French countryside, this is a dish you would find on many family dinner tables.
Can you have a meat ratatouille? Yes, you can add meat to this dish if you like, or serve it with meat as a side. Every cook puts their own spin on old classic recipes to make them fresh and tasty.
Ratatouille is a dish you can serve any time of the day and with any sides you choose. But here are a few meal ideas for dishes that go good with ratatouille.
Best Sides For Ratatouille
1. Garlic Butter and Herb Roast Chicken
Oven-roasted chicken goes great with all types of vegetable dishes. You can serve it with ratatouille and some French bread to soak up all the delicious sauce from the stew.
If you have a little wine in the refrigerator, you can turn this into a meal fit for a king.
Roasting the chicken is easy after dressing it with some herbs and garlic butter. Roast the chicken in a shallow roasting pan in the oven for roughly 1 ½ hours or until done.
2. Flank Steak
Beef goes with everything, and this is wonderful with vegetable stew. A good juicy steak makes a great accompaniment to any meal.
Flank steak can be a little tough at times. However, it is a good choice because it is an inexpensive cut of beef and can be made more tender by slow cooking.
It is best not to overcook it and then cut it into thin slices when serving. Here are some methods for cooking flank steak.
3. Italian Sausage
Sausage is typically served with peppers and onions on a bun, in a casserole, or on its own with potatoes.
Ratatouille is not necessarily a vegetarian dish. So if you wanted to make a meat ratatouille, you could add a little crumbled sausage to it for the meat lovers in your family.
Related | How To Cook Sausage In The Oven
4. Oven-Roasted Pork Chops
Roast pork is a great side for vegetable stew. This recipe for juicy pork chops uses a brine to keep the chops from turning out dry and tough.
You will need bone-in pork chops, olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, peppercorns, and a couple of bay leaves. Your pork chops are seared in a hot skillet and then oven-roasted to perfection.
The brine portion of the recipe is optional, but it really does make a difference in how juicy the meat is.
Related | How To Tell If Pork Is Bad
5. Lentil Loaf or Bean Salad
If friends or family members don’t eat meat, you could make a vegan meatloaf with lentils or a simple bean salad. Chickpeas or garbanzo beans are also a good choice for side dishes.
You can mash the chickpeas and add a little tahini for hummus and serve with crackers.
If you would rather choose beans, you can make a side dish of baked beans with bacon, 3 bean salad, or make bean burgers for a change of pace. Here is a recipe for the vegetable lentil loaf.
6. Sarah’s Rice Pilaf
Rice pilaf is a smooth buttery rice dish made with a combination of rice, orzo pasta, and chicken or vegetable broth.
This recipe calls for chicken broth, but you can substitute beef stock or vegetable broth if necessary. The broth gives it moisture and flavor, but any flavorful liquid will work.
Garnish the top with some sliced green onions and slivered almonds.
7. Gourmet Mushroom Risotto
Risotto is an Italian-style rice dish that is moist and creamy. It goes well with beef, chicken, and vegetables.
The recipe uses a combination of white and portobello mushrooms with shallots, butter, and white wine. The way to make a good risotto is to simmer it and stir it frequently.
Related | Best Way To Store Mushrooms
8. Fluffy Quinoa
If you’re not familiar with quinoa, it is a seed and not a grain like rice. It makes a good alternative to rice and cooks fast. It is the type of dish that you can put a variety of herbs and spices in it to make it taste delicious.
Making this as a side dish only requires two ingredients: quinoa and water.
But if you want to give it a bit more flavor, you can substitute chicken broth for the water and add your own combination of spices to give it flavor and make it fluffy.
9. Polenta
Polenta can be served hot for dinner topped with shredded cheese and chives.
This can also be coated in flour and pan-fried in a skillet if you shape it into a loaf while hot.
There are many ways to serve polenta, and it makes a great change from potatoes, rice, and pasta.
10. Crusty French Bread
A nice thick slice of French bread with butter makes an excellent sponge to sop up all the delicious broth from the stew is all you really need.
However, if you don’t think bread alone is enough, you can add another side to make a larger meal. If you can’t find French bread, a good sourdough bread will work too.
11. Scrambled or Fried Eggs
While most people associate eggs with breakfast, you can eat eggs for any meal. You can make some fried eggs to eat with your ratatouille or scrambled eggs with some toast to soak up the stew broth.
There are so many variations for meals that the combinations are innumerable. You’re only limited by your imagination.
Related | How To Microwave Scrambled Eggs
Make a double batch Sunday night and spread the leftover out over the rest of the week. How to eat it? Add a scoop to a bowl of rice or pasta, or serve it shakshuka-style with eggs sunny-side up. No matter how you serve it, you’ll have a tasty, filling meal.
