Skip to main content

How to Make Delicious Crêpes from Sweet to Savory

The influence of French cuisine stretches far and wide. From sauces to wine, it’s impossible to overlook the impact it’s had on how we dine. While we can thank France for perfecting some of our most beloved morning meals, like the omelet or French toast, perhaps one of their sweetest contributions to breakfast is the crêpe.

A distant cousin of the pancake, crêpes are a thinner, lighter, golden brown disc dish with the topping added to the center and the edges of the crêpe folded over to tuck the fillings inside.

Crêpes can be served any time of the day, in a variety of ways both sweet and savory. Crêpes sucrées are usually a sweet breakfast, brunch or dessert filled with fruits, sugar, or spreads like Nutella. The more savory version, crêpes salées or galettes, are enjoyed for lunch or dinner and made for toppings like cheese, eggs, and ham.

The creation of the crêpe has been traced to the coastal town of Brittany in Northern France, where it quickly became one of the country’s most popular foods. Today, crêperies line the streets and fill the menus all over France, and are even celebrated as part of the traditional holiday La Chandeleur or “Le Jour des Crêpes.”

The popularity of crêpes has spread all over the world and has been adopted by many cultures and cuisines. In South India, the dosa is a large savory crêpe made from lentil and rice and even America has a sweet sourdough crêpe known as the 49er flapjack.

Crêpes Basics

Image used with permission by copyright holder

The base of every crêpe begins with a combination of simple ingredients like flour, butter, milk, water, eggs, salt, and sugar, but depending on whether the result is sweet or savory some of the ingredients will change.

Sweet crêpes are generally made with a farine de blé or wheat flour while the traditional Brittany savory style is always made with buckwheat flour.

When it comes to what to put inside a crêpe, the toppings can be as wide-ranging as you choose but some ideas to start with include:

Sweet Fillings:

  • Butter
  • Powdered Sugar
  • Fresh Fruit
  • Nuts or Seeds
  • Honey or Syrup
  • Nutella or Nut butter
  • Caramel or Chocolate sauce
  • Whipped cream or Ice Cream

Savory Toppings:

  • Bacon and Eggs
  • Ham and Cheese
  • Sauteed Vegetables
  • Smoked Fish
  • Fruit and Cheese
  • Chicken and Spinach

How to Make Traditional French Crêpes

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Ingredients:

For Sweet:

  • 3 large eggs
  • 2 1/3 cups milk
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 2 1/3 cups flour
  • Butter for the pan

For Savory:

  • 2 eggs
  • 1 ½ cups milk
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • ¼ cup buckwheat flour
  • ¾ cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • Butter for the pan

Tip:

Since crêpes are larger than pancakes, it’s best to use a larger 8- to 9-inch non-stick pan or a crêpe pan to make sure there is enough space.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Method:

  1. In a blender, pulse the eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, salt, and flour (use ingredients based on sweet/savory) for 7 to 10 seconds, or until the batter is smooth. Pour into a bowl. (The batter can be refrigerated, covered, for up to 3 days. If the batter thickens too much, add additional milk before cooking to thin it to the consistency of heavy cream.)
  2. Heat an 8- or 10-inch non-stick skillet or well-seasoned crêpe pan over medium heat until hot. Using one end of a stick of butter, coat the bottom of the pan with a thin layer of melted butter.
  3. Pour 1/3 cup of batter into the center of the pan. Immediately pick up the pan and tilt and swirl it to spread the batter evenly over the bottom.
  4. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes, or until the crêpe is golden on the bottom.
  5. Use a rubber spatula to loosen the edge of the crêpe all around. Hold the edge with your fingertips and gently, but quickly, flip the crêpe to the other side (or use a spatula if that feels more comfortable).
  6. Cook for another 30 seconds, or until the crêpe is golden on the bottom: Slide the finished crêpe onto a plate.
  7. Repeat until all the batter is used, stacking the crêpes on top of each other on the plate.
  8. Place one crêpe on a plate and fill it with your filling of choice. Either roll the crêpe or fold it into quarters and top with additional toppings if desired. Serve warm.
Savory crepes or pancakes with tomato and spinach Image used with permission by copyright holder

How to Store Crêpes

Cover and refrigerate cooked crêpes for up to a week. They can be easily reheated in the oven or a hot pan then filled and served as if fresh.

Editors' Recommendations

Lauren Paige Richeson
Lauren Paige Richeson is an author and artist specializing in written, visual, and edible content. She wrote about Food…
How to make the perfect Paloma drink, a summertime favorite
Want to make the best version of a classic Paloma cocktail? Here's how
Paloma cocktail

Step aside Margarita, the Paloma is the real drink of Mexico. The zesty cocktail is delicious any month of the year but it's especially mouthwatering on a hot day. In a situation such as this, we like to pick the wise brains of cocktail gurus like Alicia Perry and Garret Dostal. Perry used to make incredible drinks at Polite Provisions and now work as a drinks guru at Consortium Holdings. Garrett Dostal is a cocktail consultant and brand ambassador for Hiatus Tequila.

"In terms of the Paloma cocktail, I am really looking for a cocktail that is juicy, acidic, and thirst quenching," Perry says. She adds that there are three major components at play -- the tequila for the Paloma, citrus, and soda. "In the process of creating my perfect Paloma I found that specific Blanco Tequilas were either too dominant, or were not able to stand up to the ingredients of the cocktail," she says. "Fortaleza Blanco allowed for subtle notes of citrus, agave, and vanilla to be well represented in the cocktail."

Read more
Out of brown sugar? Here’s how to make your own
Here's how to reverse-engineer brown sugar to create the ultimate version
A jar of brown sugar.

In all its forms, sugar plays a fundamental role in baking, but none more prominent than as brown sugar. Brown sugar often stands out with its distinctly warm caramel notes, perfect for your favorite cookies. But what if you’re out of it? While it's readily available in stores, you can easily make your own brown sugar at home using a combination of white sugar and molasses.

Read on as we reverse-engineer this amazing ingredient to create the ultimate brown sugar at home. Here’s what you should do.
How to make brown sugar
Gather the ingredients
To make brown sugar, you'll need two primary ingredients: White granulated sugar and molasses. White sugar is refined and devoid of molasses, which is responsible for the distinct color and taste of brown sugar. Molasses, a thick syrup obtained from sugar cane or sugar beet processing, is the key to achieving the desired result. By adding the molasses back into the white sugar, you can create the ultimate brown sugar.
Determine the ratio
The ratio of white sugar to molasses will determine the darkness and flavor intensity of your brown sugar, so it’s highly customizable.

Read more
How to make the best spaghetti sauce, according to Jamie Oliver
Anybody can make a red sauce. Here, Jamie Oliver reveals how to make the best spaghetti sauce
Sunday gravy tomato sauce pasta pot

Spaghetti sauce is subjective stuff. Most who make batches claim their recipe is the best, thanks to a few extra ingredients or a few secrets they're unwilling to make public.

Regardless of how it's put together, it's impossible to go wrong with a good red sauce. As renowned chef Jamie Oliver says, the sauce serves as a lovely base atop which you can tinker and experiment. Once you get the gist of the sauce taken care of, you can spend the rest of the week fine-tuning and playing with various riffs on the traditional spaghetti. And for the record, Oliver's spaghetti sauce is arguably the best out there, for a couple of key reasons.

Read more