Our Ultimate Guide to Making Coq au Vin

New York Times

28-03-2025

From history to technique, Melissa Clark will walk you through everything you need to know about the French classic. Francesco Tonelli for The New York Times Published March 28, 2025 Updated March 28, 2025
[This article was originally published on Feb. 14, 2017.]
Where would French cuisine be without wine? It is as important in the pot as it is in the glass, the base of myriad stews and braises. One of the best is coq au vin, in which chicken is slowly simmered with red wine. This guide is part of The New Essentials of French Cooking, the 10 definitive dishes every modern cook should master.
Braising chicken in wine is an age-old tradition, and a method used all over France. You brown the meat, add liquid to the pot, be it water, wine or stock, and then set it over low heat for a lengthy simmer. That initial browning creates the foundation of the sauce, lending complex layers of flavor to the final dish.
In a traditional coq au vin , which hails from the Burgundy region, wine is used both to tenderize what was traditionally a tough old rooster (a coq in French) and to imbue the meat with its heady flavor. When the bird is slowly simmered, often for hours and hours as the oldest recipes suggest, its sinewy flesh slackens, growing soft and aromatic, and easily yielding to the fork.
As the simmering wine seasons the chicken, the chicken seasons the wine, helping transform it into a savory sauce. The wine, which reduces as it cooks, also takes on the other flavors in the pot, in this case brandy, mushrooms, onions, bacon and herbs, along with the savory fond — that is, the caramelized bits on the bottom of the pan that you get from the initial browning of the chicken. The young, tender chickens of today cook more quickly than those earlier birds, but they are imbued with similar lusty flavors.
There are variations of coq au vin all over France, each a celebration of local wines both red and white. In Alsace, a dry riesling is used, resulting in a lighter, brighter sauce that is often enriched with a little cream or crème fraîche stirred in at the end. The Jura and the Champagne regions also have their own recipes; cooks in the Jura sometimes substitute morels for the more common white or brown button mushrooms. In Beaujolais, the young dark purple nouveau wine gives that dish the name coq au violet. But Burgundy's version, made with its local wine, is the best known across France and all over the world.
No matter what kind of wine you pour into your pot, the method of simmering it with chicken or other meat is applicable across the kitchen. Case in point: Boeuf bourguignon, another French classic, is essentially coq au vin made with chunks of stewing beef instead of fowl. Mastering this one technique leads to many excellent dinners. 'Still Life' by Jacopo da Empoli (1551-1640). Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali/Art Resource, NY
Legend has it that Julius Caesar himself introduced a version of coq au vin to France. As the commonly cited (and thoroughly apocryphal) story goes, the Celtic Gauls sent a rooster to Caesar during the Roman occupation. Caesar had his cook stew it in herbs and Roman wine and then returned it to the Gauls. Whether or not this is true, the tradition of simmering poultry in wine does indeed date to ancient Rome, and perhaps even further back.
Because the main ingredient of a coq au vin was historically a tough old rooster, it is very likely that the earliest versions were peasant fare. Recipes calling for rooster rarely graced the early tracts on French cooking in the 17th and 18th centuries, which documented food for the wealthy. It wasn't until the more current substitution of tender chicken in the 19th century that the dish and all its variations entered the French canon.
That the Burgundian version emerged as the most prominent in the United States is because of Julia Child, who championed the recipe as a symbol of the sophistication and verve of French country cooking. Dutch oven : A 6- to 8-quart Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot with lid (a rondeau pot) is an essential tool for a braise. If the pot is too small, the liquid won't evaporate enough to give you a rich sauce; if it's too large, the wine in the pot won't sufficiently cover the chicken.
Skillet : The pearl onions and mushrooms for the topping are cooked separately from the chicken, so they have their own distinct flavor and texture. A 10-inch skillet with a lid is ideal.
Tongs: A good pair of kitchen tongs will help you maneuver the chicken as you brown it, allowing you to fully sear the skin all over.
Wirecutter, a product recommendations website owned by The New York Times Company, has a guide to the best Dutch ovens and nonstick pans . Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
You want to build flavor in the pan at every step, which enriches the sauce and gives it body. That begins with the meat, which should be seared deeply to create a brawny base. How to brown chicken when making coq au vin. By Alexandra Eaton Using only bone-in dark meat makes the stew richer and thicker, because of the marrow in the bones. And dark meat isn't as prone to drying out as white meat. However, it is traditional to use a whole chicken, cut into pieces, and you can do that if you'd prefer; just add the breast to the pot 30 minutes after adding the dark meat.
Marinating the chicken before browning it will give you a more evenly seasoned bird whose flesh is fully imbued with wine. The ideal marination time is 24 hours, but even four to six hours helps the cause.
To get a good sear, the chicken must be fully dry. Otherwise, moisture will steam the skin instead of browning it. Pat it well with paper towels after marinating.
Take your time when browning the meat; it's one of the most important steps for getting robust flavor out of the chicken, and creates a brawny base for the sauce. Plan to spend at least 15 to 25 minutes at the stove for this step, searing the pieces in batches. Use tongs to hold the chicken and change its position, pressing it into the pan when necessary, so that all sides make contact with the hot metal to get a deep sear. How to serve coq au vin. By Alexandra Eaton Some coq au vin recipes call for chicken stock to replace a portion of the wine , which accentuates meaty notes in the finished sauce. But this can dilute the wine flavor. The bacon and the searing of the chicken skin provide sufficient meatiness here, so this recipe omits the stock.
Sautéing the tomato paste with the vegetables caramelizes the tomato. It also eliminates any metallic flavor, which can be an issue with canned tomato paste.
Adding flour to the pot helps thicken the sauce. Here, it is stirred into the vegetables while they're browning, which allows the taste of raw flour to cook off.
Brandy brings complexity to the final dish. Igniting the brandy in the pot is a quick way to cook out much of the alcohol, and it's easier than you think. Use a long-handled igniter or match to light the flame. It burns out pretty quickly, so there is not much to fear. However, you can skip this step and simply let the brandy cook down in the pan for 1 minute.
Here, the wine is boiled down for about 12 minutes before the chicken is added to the pot. This makes for a more intense sauce without overcooking the chicken.
One quick way to peel pearl onions for the topping is to blanch them for 1 minute in a pot of boiling water. Drain, let cool, then slip off their skins. (Frozen peeled onions tend to be very soggy, and therefore much harder to caramelize because of their high moisture content. Use them only as a last resort.)
A garnish of crisp toasted bread provides a textural contrast to the soft chicken, but feel free to leave it out.
Like all braises, coq au vin is best made a day ahead, so the flavors have a chance to intensify. Let it cool completely, then store it in the refrigerator. To reheat, first spoon off and discard any solidified fat on the surface, then place the pot over a low flame for about 20 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Or reheat it in a 350-degree oven for about 30 minutes. It's best to prepare the onions and mushrooms, and the croutons, just before serving.
Serve with a green salad, and a good bottle of Burgundy. Christopher Testani for The New York Times