Recipe
🍽️ DINNER
Galettes de Sarrasin (Buckwheat Crêpes)
Lacy, nutty buckwheat crêpes folded around ham, cheese, and an egg, the "complète" of every Breton crêperie.
French (Breton) · medium · serves 4
prep 15 min · cook 25 min
~802 cal · 44g protein · 57g carbs · 47g fat · 8g fiber · 0g sugars · 27g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Buckwheat reached Brittany in the fifteenth century and thrived in its poor, acidic soils where wheat struggled, so the buckwheat galette, not bread, became the daily food of the Breton countryside. Nutty, naturally gluten-free, and lacy at the edges, it was cooked on a flat cast-iron billig griddle and eaten morning, noon, and night.
The classic is the complete: ham, grated cheese, and an egg cracked onto the batter, the four sides folded into a square so a glossy yolk looks out through the window in the middle. Sweet crepes made from wheat flour are the dessert course, but the savoury buckwheat galette is the meal, and the two are never confused in Brittany.
By a custom as binding as any law, a galette is washed down with cidre, the dry Breton apple cider, traditionally drunk from a stoneware bowl-cup called a bolee. A creperie meal runs galette, then sweet crepe, then more cider, a rhythm that has barely changed in Breton towns for generations.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally gluten- and nut-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
2 cups buckwheat flour, buckwheat is naturally gluten-free despite the name
2.5 cups cold water
1 tsp coarse sea salt
5 eggs (one in the batter, one per galette)
4 good ham slices
1.5 cups Emmental, grated
4 tbsp salted butter
Instructions
1
Whisk the buckwheat, water, salt, and one egg (or flax gel) into a thin batter. Rest at least 2 hours, overnight is better.
2
Heat a wide pan or crêpe griddle over medium-high; butter it lightly. Pour and swirl a thin layer of batter.
3
Cook 2 minutes until the edges lace and lift. Crack an egg onto the center and spread the white gently.
4
Scatter cheese and lay the ham around the egg. When the yolk is barely set, fold the four sides in to frame it.
5
Slide onto a plate, drop a knob of salted butter on top, and repeat. Serve with dry cider if you can find it.
Breton crêperie standard.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Brittany. The batter is cooked on a billig, a flat cast-iron plate, spread with a wooden rake in one turn, and a galette is the savoury buckwheat one while a crepe is the sweet wheat one. Salted butter is the regional constant, and the salt behind it is hand-raked from the Guerande marshes, laid out by monks in the tenth century and worked much the same way since.
🗺️
France. Under the technique sits a country of regional larders that barely resemble each other: butter and cider in Normandy and Brittany, duck fat and confit through the southwest, olive oil and garlic along the Mediterranean, and choucroute with Riesling in Alsace. Which fat a French recipe reaches for usually tells you which corner of the country it comes from.
🌍
Europe. A surprising amount of European cooking is under five hundred years old. Tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, maize, beans and chocolate all crossed from the Americas after 1492, and none of them was trusted quickly: the potato took most of the eighteenth century to be accepted as food rather than animal fodder across much of the north.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
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Good to know
You’ll need: Griddle or flat pan, Whisk.
Storing it: Best fresh and hot. Keep batter covered in the fridge for up to a day, and rewarm cooked ones in a dry pan.
Make it a France meal
Crème BrûléeDessert
Croque MonsieurLunch
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Frequently asked questions
What is Galettes de Sarrasin (Buckwheat Crêpes)?
Lacy, nutty buckwheat crêpes folded around ham, cheese, and an egg, the "complète" of every Breton crêperie.
Where does Galettes de Sarrasin (Buckwheat Crêpes) come from?
Galettes de Sarrasin (Buckwheat Crêpes) is a French (Breton) dish from Brittany, France.
Can Galettes de Sarrasin (Buckwheat Crêpes) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Galettes de Sarrasin (Buckwheat Crêpes) recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Galettes de Sarrasin (Buckwheat Crêpes) safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Galettes de Sarrasin (Buckwheat Crêpes) take to make?
About 40 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 25 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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