Discover the Best French Cooking Classes Online
French cooking has long been associated with well-heeled diners at fancy restaurants. For centuries, aristocrats, politicians, and other wealthy diners have competed over Cordon Bleu-trained chefs and hosted sumptuous French meals to flaunt their wealth and good taste. Look a little closer, though, and you’ll find that French cooking is about more than heavy sauces, decadent desserts, and expensive wines. As Julia Child, the spy turned chef famous for popularizing French food in the US, put it, “You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces—just good food from fresh ingredients.” Indeed, French cooking helped to inspire one of the most down-to-earth models for American cuisine - the farm-to-table movement. At its core, French cooking is all about preparing delicious, nutritious, and well-balanced meals using fresh, high-quality fruits and vegetables.
Why You Should Learn French Cooking Online
These days, many people are trying to simplify their lives. Whether the pandemic has inspired you to spend more time with friends and family and less at work, or you want to cut down on extras to save money, or you just want to learn a new skill, French cooking classes are a great choice for anyone looking to live a calmer, more purposeful life. Cooking food at home saves money - the average American spent about $67 per week eating out in 2018, about a quarter of the total spent on rent, mortgage, and other housing-related expenses. It is also a healthier option than eating out, and you’ll have the pleasure of eating the fruit of your labor.
Cooking at home is a great way to relax after a busy day of work, and French cooking techniques are particularly useful for any home chef. Even if you’ve been cooking for yourself for years, it’s always a good idea to take a step back and think about the way you’re preparing your food. Do you want to learn to choose ingredients more carefully? Is there a dish you’ve always wanted to try? French cooking techniques are useful for all types of cuisine. Techniques like braising, sauteing, and sauce-making will kick any dish up a notch, and pastry-making opens a world of possibilities for savories and desserts. Finally, cooking is a great way to bond with old friends or meet new people, either in cooking classes or as part of a cooking club. Whether you cook alone, or use meal preparation as a fun way to bond with family or friends, you’ll end up with a tasty meal.
Virtual French Cooking Classes
It’s easy to find French cooking classes in most major cities, but many people find it more convenient to learn online. While you will generally need to supply ingredients and equipment for online classes, it is usually much easier to fit them into your day. Others prefer to learn new cooking techniques in their own kitchens, surrounded by familiar equipment, or with a group of friends at home. And if you don’t live in a city with a major foodie scene, it isn’t always easy to find the right cooking class for your particular needs. Online French cooking classes provide flexible options and plentiful choices for anyone who can’t - or doesn’t want to - attend local, in-person sessions.
Beginning with breakfast, Home Cooking New York’s Virtual Crȇpe Workshop walks participants through a flexible French favorite. Despite their popularity - a quick Google search turns up at least 100 crȇperies in New York City alone - few people realize how easy it is to make crȇpes on your own. This live, Zoom-based class hopes to change that. Home Cooking New York’s founder, Jennifer Clair started her career as recipe editor for the Wall Street Journal, then Food Editor for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. After attending culinary school herself, she made it her mission to make cooking more accessible for her students. In this Virtual Crȇpe Workshop, you will learn to make a classic crȇpe batter that can be filled with sweet or savory fruits, vegetables, and sauces. The class also eases you into French sauces, including a savory cheesy Mornay sauce and the buttery caramelized oranges that are crucial to the classic French Crȇpes Suzette. All required ingredients are listed on the course enrollment page, and further information will be sent to you right after your register. As you perfect your crȇpe technique, you can also vary up your morning routine with egg and cheese-filled breakfast crȇpes. While you’ll likely want to enjoy your crȇpes sitting down for a leisurely meal, the popular Parisian street food is also easy to take with you on your way out the door.
Many online cooking classes guide you through making a full French meal. The menu for The Chopping Block Lincoln Square’s Virtual French Bistro class features two classic French dishes: Salade Lyonnaise and Steak au Poivre. In this live class, a highly trained chef guides participants of all experience levels through both recipes, with a particular focus on how to make a vinaigrette, balancing flavors, and selecting the best cuts of meat. The Chopping Block Lincoln Square caters to recreational home chefs, and their students rave about teachers’ enthusiasm, clarity, and patience. Once you’ve registered for the class, you’ll receive a syllabus outlining the class schedule, along with ingredients and equipment lists. This gives you plenty of time to set up your personal kitchen classroom and test out your equipment before class, ensuring that you’re ready to learn and know what questions you want to ask your instructor. A dedicated Zoom moderator will ensure that all of your questions get answered during or after the class period.
In all the best restaurants, French food is accompanied by carefully chosen wines. The right wine will enhance your cooking by complementing particular flavors in the dishes you serve. Indeed, depending on its flavor profile, the choice of wine can completely change one’s experience of even the most familiar dish. Wine pairing may seem like an altogether different challenge, but it is another skill that you can pick up with practice and dedication. In-person wine tastings are usually limited to regions with thriving wineries, but online wine classes make it easy to learn about different vintages from the comfort (and safety) of your own home. The San Francisco Wine School mails participants in their Intro to French Wines class a tasting kit of six French wines. An experienced sommelier will guide you through the grapes, methods, and wine-making styles used in France’s major wine-making regions, including Champagne, Burgundy, and Bordeaux. Because wine pairing is such a personal expression of taste, it might be nice to have your own favorite foods on hand so that you can experiment with pairings as you taste. The San Francisco Wine School is a fountain of knowledge. Because the school offers internationally acclaimed wine certification programs and classes for enthusiasts of all stripes, they can offer a wide range of classes specializing in domestic and international wines and food pairing practices.
No French meal would be complete without dessert, and there is no French delicacy more acclaimed than the macaron. This storied cookie can be traced back to 8th-century Venetian nuns. Its modern incarnation combines a deliciously light, crisp cookie shell with buttercream, jam, or ganache fillings. While it may seem daunting to learn to make macarons online - many professional chefs find it challenging to make these delightful sandwich cookies in an unfamiliar kitchen - they are well suited to online learning formats. Because macarons are sensitive to variations in cooking conditions, it is easiest to learn to make them in a familiar kitchen. The Good Food Project’s French Macaron Step-by-Step Class guides students through every step of the process, from measuring ingredients, to balancing flavors, to determining the proper cooking time based on the temperature and humidity of your own oven. The Good Food Project is dedicated to making tasty, healthy home cooking fun and easy. Every week, they hold a macaron workshop focusing on a different flavor of macaron. You can participate in as many workshops as you want until you’re comfortable on your own. Or, if you need a refresher course, you can always come back to ask questions in this live Zoom class. These workshops also make great group events, either on their own or as part of a bridal shower, baby shower, or birthday.
Private Online Group French Cooking Classes
Learning French cooking techniques alone is enjoyable and rewarding, but it can also be fun to take classes with larger groups of family, friends, and co-workers. Whether you are part of a dedicated group that wants to learn to cook together or a casual gathering of people who just want to enjoy a glass of wine while taking part in a group activity, it’s easy to book French cooking classes for private groups and/or businesses. Cooking classes also make for a great bonding activity during corporate retreats and team-building exercises.
It’s always hard to choose the right lunch menu for a corporate retreat, but one fun option is CourseHorse Experiences’ Virtual Pasta Making workshop. In this 2-hour Zoom class, participants of all skill levels will learn to make one of the fundamentals of French cooking: fresh pasta. Students can work alone, or in groups, to shape regular or gluten-free pappardelle pasta by hand. After guiding you through the pasta-making process, professional chefs will also teach you to make marinara and pesto sauces from scratch, thereby completing the meal. Past participants rave about CourseHorse’s experienced instructors, citing their patience and clarity in helping new chefs to expand their horizons. Flexible scheduling options mean you can decide whether to make this class part of a larger corporate retreat - perhaps right before lunch? - or a stand-alone event. CourseHorse Experiences’ Virtual Pasta Making workshop can accommodate groups of up to 500 people and is affordably priced. As always, this number can be changed even after you’ve made the booking. Required materials are listed right on the course listing, but can also be sent directly to you for an additional fee. Ingredients can be tailored to dietary requirements, and gluten-free flour is available.
For those more interested in dessert, Atelier Sucré offers an accessible French Macaron Class in its New York City studio and online. In just a few hours, Atelier Sucré’s founder and head chef, Simon Herfray will introduce your group to the theory and techniques behind this increasingly popular, delightfully light, and gluten-free pastry. Chef Simon trained in pastry in his native France before working in acclaimed fine-dining establishments around the world. He launched Atelier Sucré in 2014. Since then, their well-appointed commercial kitchen, conveniently located in Manhattan, NY’s East Village, has hosted home chefs of all levels hoping to learn how to make macarons, croissants, beignets, and more. If you want to preview the pastries you’ll be learning to create - or just a tasty snack - Chef Simon’s macarons can also be sampled at Salon Sucré, a recent addition to New York City’s acclaimed Essex Market. Atelier Sucré’s classes balance fun with learning, meaning you’re all set whether you’re looking for a casual celebration or a serious learning experience. You can always change your group size after booking a class, and classes are fully refundable up to a week ahead of time if you have a change of plans.
CourseHorse makes it easy to book online or in-person French cooking classes for your business, organization, or just for a large group of friends. There are no booking fees and its flexible booking system lets you book a class even if you don’t know your final group size. You’ll receive an email confirmation of your booking within 24 hours, and you can change your group size after booking. If you want to customize your event, or if you’re looking to create something completely new, CourseHorse’s event providers and customer service agents are ready to help you pull it off. You can always reach a real person by email or on the phone directly through CourseHorse’s contact form. Finally, for online events, CourseHorse can support most major video platforms. While CourseHorse recommends Zoom, they can also support Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and WebEx.
Online vs. In-Person French Cooking Classes
Learning French cooking online is a lot easier than it seems. While it can help to have an instructor guide you through a complicated recipe in person, you can recreate most of that experience with a live, in-person online class. Not only will your instructor still be able to answer questions and check in on your progress in real-time, but anxious chefs won’t have to worry about making mistakes while cooking with strangers. If you do have first-time chefs in your group, scan a class’s reviews to see how others found the experience. Class listings typically specify the skill level they are intended for, so you can make sure no one will be in over their head. Online video can really level the playing field when your group has members with a range of cooking experiences.
Another pro of online classes is that they’re much easier to schedule. This is especially important if you’re a manager trying to build up team morale when your workers are spread around the country. Employees and/or friends can log in from anywhere to join the group. Finally, while you will have to provide equipment and ingredients for online cooking classes, most of the tools you will need are common kitchen accouterments. Classes will always have full equipment and ingredient lists, and many give you the option of having ingredients sent to your door.
Can I Learn French Cooking for Free Online?
These days, you can find free tutorials for anything online, and French cooking is no exception. Indeed, YouTube videos from chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Jacques Pépin are a great way to get started. You can use them to learn about basic things like the types of tools you’ll want to use, what types of dishes sound good to you, and what good ingredients look like. However, at the end of the day, nothing beats having an experienced teacher there to help you through a snag. Even when you’re not able to make it to an in-person class, online teachers can answer your questions, look at your dish to tell you where you’ve gone wrong (and what you’re doing right) and give you advice on what has and has not worked for them before. As your skills progress, you can use free tutorials to refresh your memory of what you’ve learned in class, but most people agree that they learn new things faster and better when they have an expert there to help.
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