Escargot is a traditional snail dish that is gaining worldwide popularity, thanks not only to its useful properties but also to its taste. Placed in a snail shell, the escargot fillet combined with aromatic butter, herbs, and garlic brings gourmets to a gastronomic delight. But what should you serve with escargot to fully experience its taste? Let’s find out.

What usually goes with escargot? Check out these top foods that usually go with escargot:

• broccoli,
• zucchini,
• tomatoes,
• pumpkin seeds,
• salad mixes,
• cheese,
• asparagus,
• beetroot,
• carrot,
• mushrooms,
• bell peppers.

The escargot is quite fatty, which means that the food served with escargots should be light, not greasy. As for the drinks, a glass of dry or semi-sweet white wine will brighten the evening and enrich the taste of escargots.

What To Serve With Escargot? Pairing Snails With Food and Wine

Every country has its own traditions when it comes to pairing escargots with other food and drinks. The Spaniards serve snails with hot sauces, the Bulgarians stew snails with vegetables, the Italians add snails to cappelletti (small dumplings), while the French adhere to the original recipe of escargot.

What are snails served with? Snail meat is unique, but it goes well with many foods. Escargots can be served in any form: spicy, stewed, fried, wrapped in dough, baked with cheese and butter. But escargot remains the classic recipe for cooking and serving. The butter makes the fillets tender, the garlic and parsley add flavor, and the serving in the shell makes the dish interesting.

But what goes well with escargot? Escargot goes well with grilled, stewed or fresh vegetables, rice, pasta, butter, garlic and parsley. Escargots are fairly fatty, so you want to serve them with light foods like asparagus, zucchini, mushrooms, bell peppers, beetroot, carrots, tomatoes or broccoli. Escargots also go well with rye or wheat bread and butter.

Snail is a perfect choice for any occasion, be it a romantic dinner, a business lunch, or just going out with friends. Escargots can be served at any time of the day — breakfast, lunch or dinner.

• Snails for breakfast. Breakfast must be the main meal of the day since it gives you energy for the whole day. Snails will be the perfect breakfast if you serve them with an omelette and tomatoes, bell peppers, herbs. Serve snails with rye or white bread toast to make snails less rich and fatty to help your digestion.
• Snails for lunch. Snails for lunch can be served with rice, pasta or grilled vegetables without excess oil. Rich in protein and microelements, snails, will give you the energy to finish a workday properly, while vegetables will facilitate digestion processes.
• Snails for dinner. Snails for dinner can be served with grilled or fresh vegetables like carrots, zucchini, beetroot, cucumbers, tomatoes, asparagus or mushrooms. Snails will also go well with porridge or cheese. Sometimes snails are served with peanuts and walnuts.

Snails are not usually served as an independent dish as they are too small. However, one of the most famous recipes — Burgundy snails (Escargots de Bourgogne) does not include a side dish; it is also considered a classic hot starter of traditional French cuisine.

Large snails are usually served in their own shells, seasoned with butter, garlic, onions and parsley. Gaius Julius Caesar loved grape snails, considering them to be the strongest aphrodisiac. Whole snails were served at his table. Sauces or stews are most often prepared from small snails. They can also be added to soups.

Escargots are a great snack or aperitif. Most often, they are served with white dry wine. The slight sourness of young white wine slightly mutes the creamy taste of butter and emphasizes the piquant forest notes of the unique taste of snail meat. This combination of flavors is more common in France.

The Spaniards cook snails in sauces with various aromatic spices, herbs and tomatoes, and always with chili and drink beer with snails, not wine.

You can cook salads, hot dishes or soups with snails. When choosing ingredients for snails, you need to observe the seasonality: grape snails love moisture, so they can be called a winter dish and not a summer one (in the heat, they quickly dry out and deteriorate), so it is better not to combine escargots with berries and fruits. However, you can try to cook snails with chestnuts, potatoes or asparagus.

Snails do not have an intense flavor, which means that something bright, such as artichokes, basil, tomatoes, mushrooms or citrus fruits, will be the perfect addition to them.

Pairing Escargot with Wine

What wine goes with snails? Muscadet, Saumur sec, Riesling, Silvaner, Tokay, Chablis go well with snails. Classic white Chateau, Sauvignon, Chardonnay also go well with snails. Classic wine recommendations for snails are dry white, semi-sweet white, semi-sweet rosé, sparkling wines. 

Dry or semi-sweet perfectly opens snails’ aroma, does not overload the taste, and the sourness will dilute the creamy accents of snails.

Another popular drink served with snails is Chablis. It is a drink created from the Pinot Blanc grapes. It includes aromas of apples, nuts and smoky shades and goes well with escargots.

As for the sparkling wine, it emphasizes the taste of snails well, especially snail caviar. Riesling and Gewürztraminer are sparkling drinks that perfectly emphasize the festiveness of the evening and the solemnity of the event that you want to celebrate with delicious escargots. If you are planning a buffet table, then serve chilled riesling with warm escargot.

White wines do not contain much tannin, so they perfectly emphasize the taste of seafood with a creamy sauce, salads, vegetables, and fruits, but not very sweet. In some cases, when the main dish combines snail meat with rabbit or turkey fillets, red wine can go with escargots.

If you doubt whether snails are worth it, you should weigh all the pros and cons. Someone treats these cute creatures as pets, but for someone, it is a valuable protein product with an amazing taste and many useful properties.

As for the usefulness of snail meat, there can be no doubt: snails contain only 90 calories per 100 g; only 2-3% fat and that consists of unsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids, no cholesterol and as much as 15% protein. Snail meat is rich in magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, iron, zinc, copper, vitamins A, E and group B. It is not surprising that snails are considered a powerful aphrodisiac, comparable only to oysters.

Cooking snails around the world is a tradition that has developed over the years. Somewhere they are cooked with butter, somewhere in a tomato or fried in olive oil. But in each country and province, there are certain traditions of serving and preparing snails. In France, exquisite wines are served to delicious escargots baked with butter. In Spain, snails are considered a family dish, prepared for a large company and served with beer.

In general, escargot is an exclusive product. Among the variety of our traditional products, this delicacy is of interest to the consumer, attracting with originality, taste, non-standard presentation. It will perfectly decorate an evening with friends, a festive banquet or a celebration in the circle of gourmets.