Savoyard Cheese Fondue Recipe – The French Pantry

A real Savoyard fondue is three alpine cheeses, dry white wine, and about ten minutes of patient stirring. Beaufort d'Alpage, farmhouse Abondance d'Alpage and Emmental de Savoie in equal thirds give you the three things a fondue needs: depth, a nutty middle, and a cheese that stretches. The wine is not a flavouring, it is the acid that keeps the melted cheese smooth. Count on 200 g of cheese per person and serve it the moment it is ready.

At a glance

Difficulty: Medium
Serves: 4
Active time: About 15 minutes, all of it at the pot
Cook: On the stovetop, over low heat, until smooth
Key ingredient: 800 g alpine cheese in equal thirds, Beaufort d'Alpage PDO, farmhouse Abondance d'Alpage PDO and Emmental de Savoie PGI

Why this works

The three-cheese ratio is doing real work. Beaufort d'Alpage is made from summer mountain milk and carries the fondue's backbone, a deep, slightly fruity flavour that survives being diluted with wine. Farmhouse Abondance d'Alpage brings the nutty, faintly bitter note that keeps the pot from tasting like plain melted cheese. Emmental de Savoie is the one nobody talks about and nobody should skip: it is the mildest of the three and it stretches, giving the fondue the long pull off the fork that makes it worth eating. Use only the strong cheeses and you get something aggressive that sets into a rubbery mass.

The wine is chemistry, not seasoning. Cheese held above about 60 degrees will tighten and squeeze its fat out, which is what people mean when they say a fondue has split. The tartaric acid in a dry Savoie white keeps the casein proteins from clumping, so the cheese stays in suspension. That is also why the recipe adds wine and cheese in stages rather than all at once, and why the pot must never boil. Stirring in a figure of eight rather than a circle keeps the cheese moving off the bottom of the caquelon instead of spinning in one mass above it.

Ingredients

The cheese quantity is per person, so scale it straight up or down.

Ingredient	Metric	US
Cheese, cubed or grated (200 g per person): one third Beaufort d'Alpage PDO, one third farmhouse Abondance d'Alpage PDO, one third Emmental de Savoie PGI	800 g	About 1 lb 12 oz
Dry white wine, ideally from Savoie (Apremont, Roussette de Savoie, Crépy, Chignin)	40 cl	About 1 2/3 cups
Stale white bread	500 g	About 1 lb 2 oz
Garlic (optional)	1 clove	1 clove

You will also need a fondue pot (a caquelon), a wooden spoon, and a burner to keep the pot warm at the table.

Method

Step 1: Start the pot and add the first quarter of the cheese

Peel the garlic clove, halve it, and rub the cut sides around the inside of the caquelon. Set the pot over heat with 10 cl (about a scant 1/2 cup) of the white wine. When the wine begins to foam, tip in a quarter of the cheese mixture and start working it with the wooden spoon, moving in a figure of eight so the cheese is dragged across the base rather than spun around it. Keep the heat low. The fondue must never come to a boil.

Step 2: Build it up gradually, then serve at once

Add the rest of the wine and cheese a little at a time, stirring constantly and letting each addition melt before the next goes in. Judge the wine by eye: add just enough to keep the cheese moving, and no more, or the fondue will be runny. What you want is a smooth, creamy body that coats the spoon. As soon as it reaches that point, set the caquelon on its burner at the table and eat. Fondue does not wait.

Step 3: Or take one of the three variations

Maison Bordier offers three. For a Fondue Montagnarde, use Comté in place of the farmhouse Abondance d'Alpage AOP. For a Swiss Fondue Moitié-Moitié, go half Swiss Gruyère PDO and half Vacherin Fribourgeois PDO. For a Fondue Brebis Piment d'Espelette, use half farmhouse Ossau-Iraty PDO and half Estaing du Larzac, and add Espelette pepper just before serving.

Tips from our kitchen

Grate the cheese, do not cube it, if you are nervous. Cubes melt from the outside in and the last of them sit at the bottom of the pot while everything above them overheats. Coarsely grated cheese goes into suspension faster and more evenly.
Bring the cheese to room temperature first. Cold cheese dropped into hot wine seizes on contact. Take it out of the fridge half an hour before you start and the pot will come together with far less stirring.
Low heat, always, and stop before it bubbles. A fondue that is simmering is already on its way to splitting. If you see the surface break into bubbles, pull the pot off the heat and keep stirring until it settles.
If it splits, a splash of wine and hard stirring usually saves it. Take the pot off the heat, add a tablespoon or two of the dry white, and work the spoon fast. Acid plus agitation brings most broken fondues back. If that fails, whisk in a teaspoon of cornstarch slaked in cold wine.
Use bread that is a day or two old. Fresh bread collapses off the fork and sinks. Stale bread with a firm crumb and some crust on each cube holds up to the dipping.
The crust at the bottom is the best part. When the pot is nearly empty, leave it a minute over the burner and the last of the cheese sets into a golden disc called la religieuse. Lift it out whole and split it.

How to serve it

Bread and nothing else is traditional, but a plate of cured mountain ham, cornichons and pickled onions on the side gives the table something sharp to reach for. Drink the same dry white you cooked with, or a Savoie red like Mondeuse. Skip anything sweet or heavily oaked. If you like an alpine meal without the pot in the middle of the table, the French churned butter collection is where to look for the butter that makes the bread worth eating on its own.

Where to buy Bordier butter in the US

The French Pantry ships Bordier butter across the United States in insulated overnight packaging, straight from the workshop in Brittany.

This is a Maison Bordier cheese recipe rather than a butter recipe, and the alpine cheeses in it are not part of our catalog. The butter churned in the same Brittany workshop is, and there is always bread at a fondue table.

Churned Salted Butter by Bordier (4.4 oz): semi-salted at 2.8% fine salt, with caramel and hazelnut notes in summer, and the natural block to put beside a loaf.

For the flavoured butters, including seaweed, Roscoff onion and Espelette pepper, browse the Maison Bordier collection.

Frequently asked questions

How much Bordier butter should I buy for a fondue night?

Bordier blocks are 4.4 oz (125 g). None of it goes into the pot, so this is for the bread and the cold plates: one block covers four people comfortably. Two if you are also serving boiled potatoes or breakfast the next morning.

What if I cannot find Beaufort, Abondance and Emmental de Savoie?

Keep the structure and swap within it. Comté stands in for Abondance, which is the variation Maison Bordier gives themselves. Gruyère covers the Beaufort role reasonably well. For the stretchy third, any young Swiss-style Emmental works. What you should not do is drop to a single cheese: the balance between the three is the recipe.

Can I substitute the Bordier butter for a supermarket brand?

You can, and the bread will still taste fine. But Bordier is churned by hand on a wooden malaxeur in Brittany, which leaves a texture and a depth of flavour that industrial butter does not have. If the salted version is too pronounced for you, the unsalted is the same butter without the 2.8% salt.

How should I store Bordier butter?

Wrapped in its own paper, in the coldest part of the fridge. Cut off what you need and let it sit out for twenty minutes before spreading. It also freezes well if it is wrapped tightly.

Does Bordier butter need refrigeration?

Yes. Bordier butter is a fresh, hand-churned product and ships cold in insulated packaging. Put it in the fridge as soon as the box arrives.

Do I have to use alcohol?

The wine is doing structural work, not just flavouring, so removing it changes the recipe. If you need to cook without it, the closest substitute is an equal quantity of dry cider, which brings its own acidity.

Savoyard Fondue: The Classic Three-Cheese Recipe