Get ready to transport your taste buds back in time! These easy vol-au-vent recipes are here to bring a touch of retro charm to your modern kitchen.
Think flaky pastry shells overflowing with the best sweet and savory fillings. Here are 17 recipes you’ll want to make!
1. Chicken and Mushroom Vol-au-Vent
In the mood for something creamy and earthy? Then you really can’t top chicken and mushrooms. What makes this vol-au-vent extra special is the luxuriously rich buttery roux.
The flaky puff pastry, the tender chicken, and the meaty mushrooms make for a truly exquisite bite. This is one appetizer you will definitely not want to share.
2. Brie and Cranberry Vol-au-Vent
These bite-sized treats are perfect for those who love both sweet and savory flavors! They are filled with a blend of creamy, melty Brie and sweet, tart cranberry sauce.
These cups are also garnished with crunchy pistachios for added texture and flavor. Use leftover cranberry sauce to make this recipe on Boxing Day!
3. Beef, Red Wine & Mushroom Vol-Au-Vents
Here’s a recipe to transform tender beef and meaty mushrooms into an incredible vol-au-vent filling! Simply add some thyme for garnish, some heavy cream, and a dash of red wine.
This is like enjoying a savory meat pie with a flakier crust and a more tempting filling. It is truly scrumptious!
4. Shrimp Vol-au-Vent
You definitely don’t have to make puff pastry from scratch for any of these recipes. For each recipe, store-bought, frozen puff pastry will work perfectly fine, and in most big stores, you can even get pre-made vols-au-vent!
Start your journey with this succulent shrimp recipe. Together with the flaky and buttery puff pastry shell, these cups are filled with a mix of sweet, plump shrimp and a creamy, refreshing cocktail sauce, for a treasure trove of textures and flavors.
If you’re throwing an elegant cocktail party, this shrimp appetizer is the perfect food to serve.
5. Puff Pastry Baskets with Nutella
With vols-au-vent, any dessert with Nutella is a guaranteed success. These flaky puff pastry baskets are packed to the brim with Nutella and…that’s all.
Despite its simplicity, this dessert is incredibly delicious. Just ask any kid who’s ever tried it!
6. Vanilla Blueberry Vols-Au-Vent
Here is another lovely dessert that is as delectable as it is pretty. These vols-au-vent have fresh blueberries and vanilla pudding as a filling, and are garnished with orange peel. With an equally light and refreshing filling and light and airy pastry, it’s a divine mix.
For those who need to prepare these beforehand, prepare the pastry and let it cool before brushing some chocolate inside. Once that’s cooled, it serves as a barrier, preventing the pudding from seeping into the pastry and making it soggy.
7. Shrimp Etouffee Vol au Vents
This dish seems hard to make, but don’t let the name scare you! A vol-au-vent is simple, so let’s move on to etouffee.
It’s a French word that appropriately means “smothered”. This is a Cajun or Creole dish that features rice that’s smothered with shellfish in a thick tomato-based sauce.
If you combine the two dishes, you get a magnificent seafood appetizer you will want to prepare over and over.
8. Mushroom and Sausage Vols-au-Vent
They might not seem as appealing as the recipe above, but make sure you get a load of this ingredient list! There’s parmesan, cream cheese, ground sausage, lots of spices and herbs, and diced cremini and portobello mushrooms.
It’s a tantalizing assortment that will satisfy your salty cravings. Here’s some interesting trivia: vols-au-vent, and not vol-au-vents, is the plural form of vol-au-vent.
9. Bouchée à la Reine (Vol-au-Vent)
The traditional vols-au-vent, called bouchee a la Reine, uses a filling of pureed poultry. However, let’s go ahead and use bacon instead, even though that sounds good.
After all, with bacon, everything tastes better, right? Add some creamy crème fraîche and meaty mushrooms, cook everything together, and ta-da, this bacon appetizer is ready.
10. Cream Cheese And Smoked Salmon Vol Au Vents
The ultimate breakfast combination is cheese and smoked salmon. However, as a luxurious and light appetizer, it also works well.
Whenever this fusion of salty-savory-smoky flavors presents itself, I know I’ll never say no. It is amazing with bagels, bread, and even vols-au-vent.
At your next party or brunch, serve these. No matter what, they’ll be gone in a flash.
11. Creamy Leek and Mushroom Vol au Vents
In this extremely savory vol-au-vent recipe, sweet and oniony leeks meet meaty, earthy mushrooms. The leeks provide the onion flavor with a superb garlicky note, and they complement the mushrooms very well.
I also really enjoy the additional color that leeks provide! Although this dish is completely vegetarian, it’s so flavorful that no one will long for the meat.
12. Homemade Mushroom Vols Au Vent
Garlic mushrooms are always sure to be a hit, but you might need to watch your fingers when adding a cream sauce to the mix, because I don’t think these will last for very long! It’s not complicated, and you can use whichever mushrooms you like.
You could even add some chopped chicken if you want more protein. This should be at the top of your list as far as mushroom appetizers go.
13. Strawberry Vol-Au-Vent Dessert
What a sight to behold! This strawberry vol-au-vent is magnificent! Envision strawberry and whipped cream parfait, but instead of a glass, it is layered within a cronut-like puff pastry cup that has been hollowed out.
It’s wonderful how the sweet-tart filling and savory-buttery casing work together to create an ideal flavor balance. Plus, to make this, you only need four ingredients. You really wouldn’t know by the looks of it!
14. Turkey Vol au Vent Shells
Let’s appreciate how striking this vol-au-vent is for a moment. Don’t you think it’s amazing how a basic scattering of pomegranate arils can make any dish look breathtaking?
Just as gorgeous as it is delicious, this appetizer is a creamy sauce featuring diced turkey, green peas, and mushrooms, all inside a buttery and flaky shell. To use up leftover turkey, this is another fantastic post-holiday recipe.
15. Escargot con Funghi in Vol-au-Vent
For an appetizer that will impress your guests, look no further. With this escargot and mushroom vols-au-vent, any event will be elevated.
This is the time to try escargot if you have never had it before! Just dismiss the idea that they’re land snails before digging in.
It may be your first time working with snails, but there’s no need to be afraid because this recipe is surprisingly simple to make. Just ensure that you add lots of garlic butter!
16. Poached Pear Vol au Vents
This vol-au-vent recipe may look fancy, but one of the sneakiest ways to make a simple yet elegant dessert is to poach pears. Just let the fruit bubble until fork-tender in a spiced, white wine bath.
From there, quickly prepare some pastry cream to pair with it before stacking everything on a plate. What could be easier than that?