The little pasta of the Savoie: a stiff dough of wheat and often buckwheat flour, rolled into a thin sheet and cut into tiny squares barely five millimetres across, then dried into a hardy pantry staple. Boiled or simmered in broth and dressed simply with grated Beaufort and butter, crozets were for centuries the everyday winter starch of the Alpine valleys, where wheat grew poorly and buckwheat filled the gap. They cook up firm and faintly nutty, each square holding its shape. They are best known today as the base of croziflette, the cheese-and-lardon gratin that borrows them in place of potatoes.
A farmhouse pasta of the Savoie and Haute-Savoie, most strongly tied to the Tarentaise valley and the market town of Moûtiers, where altitude made wheat a difficult crop and the hardier buckwheat (sarrasin, "black wheat") was milled to stretch or replace it. Squares of dried dough kept well and travelled easily up to the summer alpine pastures, which suited the herders' life. For most of their history crozets were made only at home and eaten on Sundays and feast days; documentary mentions of Savoyard pasta of this kind go back to the 18th century, though the dish is older and no single origin date can be fixed. The commercial turn is better recorded: in 1968 the Fraissard family, grocers in Moûtiers, served homemade crozets to a guest, word spread, and demand grew into the first regional production. There is no PGI or protected status for crozets. The name is usually traced to the Franco-Provençal croé, "small," though some link it instead to crux, "cross."
Each square comes off the spoon firm and distinct, with a gentle chew and the faint earthy, nutty taste buckwheat gives. Dressed only with butter and melting Beaufort, they are plain, warming mountain food — the cheese clinging to every little square, a few twists of pepper, nothing more. The wheat-only version is milder and paler; the buckwheat version is greyer and more savoury. Overcook them and they slump into mush, so the firm bite is the whole point.
Buckwheat is not a true grain and has no gluten, so a part-buckwheat dough is rolled stiff and dense; the wheat flour and egg supply just enough gluten to bind the sheet and let it be cut cleanly into squares. Dried slowly, the little squares lose their surface moisture and harden, which is what lets them keep for months in the pantry without spoiling. In the pot they rehydrate from the outside in: because each piece is small and thick relative to its surface, the centre stays firm while the edges soften, giving the characteristic dense, even chew. Boiling in broth rather than plain water seasons them through as they swell, and a final toss with cheese and butter coats every square as the starch on the surface helps the sauce cling.
Variations
The two basic kinds are crozets nature, made with soft or hard wheat alone, and the darker crozets au sarrasin, cut with about a fifth buckwheat — the more traditional and more flavourful of the two. Beyond the plain buttered-and-cheesed treatment, they are simmered in stock as a soup garnish, folded into a gratin with Beaufort, or baked under Reblochon and lardons as croziflette. Some cooks toss them with cream, ham and mushrooms; in summer they also turn up cold in salads. Round and rectangular cuts exist alongside the classic small square.
On the Palate
Where Crozets sits in the French flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
7 steps · 40 min active + 30 min waiting
- 115 min
Mix wheat flour (and buckwheat flour, if using), eggs, salt and a little water into a firm, smooth dough; knead until elastic.
- 220 min
Rest the dough, then roll it out into a thin sheet a couple of millimetres thick.
- 310 min
Cut the sheet into narrow strips, then across into tiny squares about 5mm wide.
- 430 min
Spread the squares out on a cloth or tray and let them air-dry until hardened.
Watch outAir-dry the little squares until genuinely hardened — that's what lets them keep for months and cook up with an even, dense chew; damp ones clump and go gummy.
- 55 min
Bring a pot of salted water or light broth to a gentle boil and tip in the crozets.
- 616 min
Simmer 12-20 minutes, stirring now and then, until tender but still firm to the bite; drain.
Watch outSimmer twelve to twenty minutes until tender but still firm at the centre — because each piece is thick, the middle stays chewy while the edges soften.
- 74 min
Toss the hot crozets with butter and plenty of grated Beaufort until coated and glossy, season with pepper, and serve at once.
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