If cornichons have turned up in a recipe or caught your eye at the store, here's what you need to use them with confidence and how to choose them, cook them, store them, what to substitute, and 7 recipes to try them in.

What are cornichons?

Cornichons are tiny, tart French pickles made from gherkin cucumbers harvested young, when they are no longer than a little finger. They are pickled in vinegar rather than salt brine, often with tarragon and pearl onions, which gives them a sharp, mouth-puckering sourness and a firm, almost crisp snap.

They are not sweet.

Where an American bread-and-butter pickle leans sugary, a true cornichon is bracingly acidic, and that sharpness is the whole point: it exists to cut fat and richness on the plate.

Think of them as a seasoning more than a snack. A few chopped into a sauce or scattered beside a rich dish do more work per bite than their size suggests.

Cooking With Cornichons

Their classic role is the foil to fatty, salty foods. They are the traditional partner to pate and cured meats, the bright acid bite that resets your palate between rich mouthfuls on a charcuterie board.

Chopped fine, they bring tang and texture to cold sauces. They are a defining note in a Gribiche Sauce and the cornichon-flecked dressing for Fillet of Beef with Cornichon Tarragon Sauce, and they stand in for capers or relish in a homemade Tartar Sauce.

They also work raw in salads and sandwiches, where their acidity wakes up creamy or starchy ingredients. Try them sliced into an Avocado, Cornichon & Arugula salad or folded through a potato or egg salad for a sharp counterpoint.

Pairing and Common Mistakes

Cornichons love everything rich and fatty: cured sausage and smoked fish, sharp cheese and cold roast beef, and mustard-heavy dressings. Their tarragon note pairs especially well with beef and with the Dijon mustard they so often sit beside.

The most common mistake is treating them like sweet pickles and adding sugar to compensate. Their sourness is a feature; balance it with fat and salt on the plate, not by sweetening the cornichon itself.

The second mistake is over-chopping them into a sauce too early. Their crunch is part of what they offer, so chop them just before serving and fold them in at the end, or they go soft and lose the textural contrast that makes them worth using.

Substitutes

Capers are the closest swap in spirit, small and sharply briny, though they bring a floral, almost lemony note rather than tarragon. Use them roughly one for one in sauces.

Dill gherkins or small dill pickles are the next best thing, similar in size and crunch but milder and less tart, so add a splash of extra vinegar if you want the cornichon edge. Avoid sweet pickles, which pull the dish in the wrong direction entirely.

For a quick stand-in, finely diced dill pickle plus a few drops of white wine vinegar gets close to the brightness. Pickled pearl onions can cover the role in a charcuterie spread when you have no cornichons at all.

Buying and Storing

Cornichons come in jars in the pickle or international aisle, usually labelled cornichons or sometimes French gherkins. Look for ones packed in vinegar with tarragon listed, and pick small, uniform pickles, since the tiniest are the crispest and most sought after.

Once opened, keep the jar refrigerated with the pickles fully submerged in their brine, which is what preserves them and keeps them crunchy. They will stay good for several months this way, slowly softening over time.

If the brine drops below the pickles, top it up with a little white wine vinegar so the exposed ones do not spoil.

Always use a clean fork rather than fingers. Crumbs or bacteria are the fastest way to cloud the brine and shorten the jar's life.

Quick facts

In Chinese

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British (UK) term

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en français

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Recipes using cornichons

There are 7 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 7 recipes