COPPERWhat is the national dish of Canada?
Canada has no official national dish, but poutine is the one most often cited: French fries topped with fresh cheese curds and a hot, thin brown gravy that softens the curds without melting them. It was born in rural Quebec in the late 1950s. Butter tarts, tourtière and Canadian bacon are the other foods Canadians most often name.
What is poutine?
Poutine has three parts and no more: fried potatoes, fresh cheese curds and a brown sauce poured on hot. What makes it work is the contrast between them. The fries must stay crisp, the curds must still squeak between the teeth, and the gravy has to be hot enough to warm the curds without turning them into melted cheese.
The curds are the hard part. They lose their elastic texture and their squeak as they age, which is why they should be less than a day old. That freshness rule kept poutine close to Quebec's dairy country for decades.
The sauce is not a thick American gravy. In Quebec it is a sauce brune, a light, slightly peppery mix of beef and chicken stock.
How poutine is made
Our poutine recipe follows the Quebec method step by step. The short version:
- The curds: 300 g, under a day old, left out at room temperature so the sauce does not have to fight the fridge cold.
- The sauce brune: a roux of 40 g butter and 40 g flour cooked 4 to 5 minutes until it smells of toast, then 500 ml beef stock and 250 ml chicken stock, simmered 10 minutes. It stays thin and pourable.
- The fries: 1 kg of potatoes cut into 1 cm sticks, rinsed and dried, fried once at 160 °C for 5 to 6 minutes, rested, then again at 190 °C for 2 to 3 minutes. Oven fries collapse under the sauce.
- The assembly: fries in a deep bowl, curds scattered over, boiling sauce poured on last, eaten at once.
Where poutine comes from
Poutine appeared in the Centre-du-Québec region in the late 1950s, and several restaurants there still claim it. In Warwick, Fernand Lachance of Le Café Idéal is said to have put cheese curds in a bag of fries for a regular in 1957. In Drummondville, Jean-Paul Roy of Le Roy Jucep began serving fries, gravy and curds together in 1958 and put the combination on his menu in 1964.
For years it was a cheap snack sold in roadside diners, chip wagons and hockey arenas. Montreal chefs started taking it seriously in the 2000s, and it then spread across Canada.
That spread has a political edge. Many in Quebec see poutine as a Québécois dish first, and some writers argue that calling it Canada's national dish takes it away from Quebec culture. Fries have their own claimants too: see the national dish of Belgium.
Why Canada has no single national dish
No law or government body names a national dish for Canada, and polls disagree. A 2015 Statista survey asked which food should become the official national food: Canadian bacon came first with 35%, poutine second with 30%. A 2017 Maclean's survey of favourite iconic Canadian foods put poutine first at 21%, ahead of maple syrup at 14%.
A country this large and this regional rarely agrees on one plate. Lists of signature Canadian food usually include the same group: poutine, butter tarts, Nanaimo bars, tourtière, split pea soup, BeaverTails, Halifax donair and Montreal-style bagels. Poutine is simply the name that comes up most often.
Poutine variations and festivals
Once poutine left the chip wagons, restaurants started building on the original. Montreal's La Banquise, open since the early 1970s, offers dozens of versions. Most keep the three base ingredients and add a topping, with the gravy adjusted to match. A few are now classics in their own right:
Poutine also has its own calendar. The first poutine festival was held in Warwick in 1993 and later moved to Victoriaville. Montreal's La Poutine Week, held from 1 to 7 February since 2013, had grown by 2021 into the largest poutine festival in the world, with more than 700 participating restaurants.
- Galvaude: topped with chicken and green peas, a speciality of the Quebec City chain Chez Ashton.
- Dulton: with ground beef, also from Chez Ashton.
- Foie gras poutine: served from 2001 by Martin Picard at Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal, the dish that convinced chefs in Toronto and Vancouver to put poutine on upscale menus.
- Smoked meat poutine: topped with Montreal-style smoked meat; sausage, chicken, bacon and brisket are other common meat toppings.
Other dishes to know from Canada
Butter tarts are the dessert most Canadians would put next to poutine. They are small pastry shells filled with butter, brown sugar, syrup and egg, baked until the centre still wobbles. They belong mostly to English-speaking Canada, and whether raisins go in is a genuine national argument.
Tourtière is the French-Canadian meat pie of the Christmas réveillon in Quebec: pork and beef simmered with clove, cinnamon, allspice and savory, then chilled before it goes into the pastry.
You will find all three dishes, with ingredients and step-by-step methods, on our page about the food of Canada.
For the neighbouring kitchens, see our guide to North American food.
The recipes
- Poutine🇨🇦 Canada · 1 hour
Butter tarts🇨🇦 Canada · 2 hours and 30 minutes
Tourtière🇨🇦 Canada · 14 hours and 35 minutes
Questions people ask
Is poutine Canada's official national dish?
No. Canada has no official national dish. Poutine is the dish most often called Canada's national dish, ahead of butter tarts and Canadian bacon.
Is poutine from Quebec or Canada?
Poutine comes from Quebec, from the Centre-du-Québec region in the late 1950s. It later spread to the rest of Canada, and many Québécois still consider it a Quebec dish first.
Who invented poutine?
Nobody knows for sure. Warwick and Drummondville both claim it: Fernand Lachance is linked to 1957 in Warwick, and Jean-Paul Roy put it on his Drummondville menu in 1964.
Why do poutine cheese curds squeak?
Fresh curds keep an elastic protein structure that squeaks against the teeth. It fades within about a day, which is why good poutine uses curds less than a day old.
What else is considered a national food of Canada?
Butter tarts, Canadian bacon, maple syrup, tourtière and Nanaimo bars are the foods most often named alongside poutine.
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