Belgian Lunch Ideas: Tartines, Soups and Everyday Belgian Recipes

A typical Belgian lunch is bread-based and simple. Most people eat tartines (open or closed slices of buttered bread, called boterhammen in Flemish) or a filled baguette, often with a bowl of homemade vegetable soup. Popular fillings include ham, cheese, egg salad, chicken curry spread, grey shrimp and filet américain. Lunch is also where yesterday's dinner reappears: a spoonful of beef stew on bread, a slice of endive gratin or a container of mashed potatoes with vegetables. The ideas below show how to combine these Belgian lunch foods into easy, balanced meals for the table or the lunchbox.

What are typical Belgian lunch foods?

Typical Belgian lunch foods fall into four groups: bread with toppings, soups, salads built on seasonal vegetables such as Belgian endive, and reheated or repurposed dinner leftovers. A school or office lunch in Flanders is often a brooddoos (bread box) of buttered sandwiches, while a sandwich shop lunch is usually a baguette or soft roll filled to order.

• Bread and spreads: sliced wholemeal or white bread, baguette, soft rolls, butter or margarine.
• Cold cuts and cheese: cooked ham (hesp), salami, Gouda-style or Abbey-style cheeses, Herve cheese for those who like strong flavours.
• Sandwich salads: egg salad, tuna salad, chicken curry, crab or surimi salad, all bound with mayonnaise.
• Sweet toppings: chocolate spread, speculoos spread, sirop de Liège (a thick apple and pear syrup).
• Soups: vegetable soup, tomato soup with tiny meatballs, leek and potato soup.
• Vegetables: lettuce, tomato, cucumber, grated carrot, and Belgian endive in salads.

How does a Belgian lunch compare with a Dutch lunch?

Belgian and Dutch lunches share the same foundation: bread, cheese, cold cuts and a modest, practical midday meal. The differences lie mostly in the toppings and in how often a warm dish or soup appears.

Aspect	Belgian lunch	Dutch lunch
Bread	Sliced bread for home, baguette or rolls from sandwich shops	Sliced bread and soft rolls (broodjes)
Classic fillings	Smos, chicken curry, filet américain, grey shrimp, ham and cheese	Cheese (often Gouda), ham, peanut butter, croquette on a roll
Sweet toppings	Chocolate spread, speculoos spread, sirop de Liège	Hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles), chocolate spread
Warm options	Soup, croque monsieur, leftovers from dinner	Soup, uitsmijter (fried eggs on bread), croquettes
Packed lunch name	Brooddoos (Flanders)	Broodtrommel

Borrowing from both traditions works well. A Dutch cheese sandwich becomes more Belgian with a swipe of sirop de Liège, and a Belgian smos is a generous upgrade on a plain Dutch ham roll.

Belgian lunch ideas built on bread: tartines and sandwiches

Belgian sandwiches work because they combine a soft or crusty bread, a fatty element (butter or mayonnaise), a savoury main filling and something fresh or sharp. Get those four parts right and almost any topping tastes complete.

Classic Belgian sandwich fillings to try

• Smos: a baguette with ham and cheese plus lettuce, tomato, cucumber, sliced boiled egg, grated carrot and mayonnaise. The name refers to the messy, overflowing filling.
• Chicken curry: cooked chicken mixed with a mild curry mayonnaise, sometimes with pineapple pieces. Add lettuce for crunch.
• Grey shrimp: small North Sea shrimp mixed with a little mayonnaise, with tomato and lettuce. It is the sandwich version of the tomate-crevette starter.
• Filet américain and martino: filet américain (also called préparé) is seasoned raw minced beef. A martino adds a spicy sauce, pickles and onion. Because the beef is raw, eat it fresh from a shop or keep it well chilled and eat it promptly; it is not a good choice for an unrefrigerated lunchbox.
• Herve cheese with sirop de Liège: a strong, soft cheese balanced by sweet, dark apple and pear syrup. Mild cheese works too if Herve is too intense.
• Egg salad: chopped boiled eggs with mayonnaise, mustard, chives, salt and pepper.

How to build a balanced tartine

1. Choose the bread: firm sliced bread for packed lunches, baguette or a crusty roll when eating straight away.
2. Add a thin fat layer such as butter or mayonnaise. It adds flavour and keeps wet fillings from soaking into the bread.
3. Add the main filling: one cold cut, one cheese or one sandwich salad.
4. Add something fresh: lettuce, cucumber, tomato, grated carrot or a few endive leaves.
5. Finish with a sharp or sweet accent: mustard, pickles, sliced radish, apple, or a little syrup with cheese.

For a warm version, make a croque monsieur: ham and cheese between buttered slices of bread, toasted in a pan or sandwich press until the cheese melts. It is a brasserie favourite and a quick home lunch.

Belgian lunch recipes for soups

Soup is one of the most practical Belgian lunch recipes: it is cheap, uses whatever vegetables are on hand, keeps for several days in the fridge and travels well in a thermos. Belgian home soups are usually smooth or lightly chunky vegetable soups served with bread.

Everyday Belgian vegetable soup

This soup serves about 4 and uses ordinary vegetables.

• 2 leeks, cleaned and sliced
• 2 carrots, sliced
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 celery stalk, sliced
• 2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
• about 1.5 litres vegetable or chicken stock
• a knob of butter, salt, pepper and a pinch of nutmeg

1. Melt the butter in a large pot and soften the onion and leeks gently for a few minutes without browning.
2. Add the carrots, celery and potatoes and stir.
3. Pour in the stock, bring to the boil, then simmer until all the vegetables are completely soft.
4. Blend smooth, or blend only half for a chunkier texture.
5. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg, and taste before serving.

Soup with small meatballs

Vegetable or tomato soup with tiny meatballs (soep met balletjes) is a well-loved Belgian family classic. To make the meatballs, mix about 250 g of minced meat with an egg, a spoonful of breadcrumbs, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Roll into marble-sized balls and drop them into the simmering, already blended soup. Cook until the meatballs are cooked through before serving. Children often enjoy finding them in the bowl.

How to use Belgian endive at lunch

Belgian endive (witloof in Flemish, chicon in Wallonia) is a crisp, slightly bitter vegetable that suits lunch both raw and cooked. Its bitterness is best balanced with something sweet, salty or rich.

Raw endive salad with apple and walnuts

Slice 2 endives into rings, removing the small hard cone at the base where much of the bitterness sits. Add 1 diced apple, a handful of walnuts and some cubed cheese. Dress with a vinaigrette of oil, vinegar, a little mustard, salt and pepper. Pack the dressing separately so the leaves stay crisp until lunchtime.

Endive leaves as edible scoops

Whole endive leaves make neat containers for egg salad, chicken curry or grey shrimp. This is a lighter alternative to bread and looks inviting in a lunchbox.

Leftover endive gratin

Chicons au gratin, braised endives wrapped in ham and baked under a cheese sauce, is a classic Belgian dinner. A cold or reheated slice the next day makes a satisfying lunch with a piece of bread.

Turning Belgium dinner recipes into next-day lunches

Many Belgium dinner recipes reheat well and make an easy second meal at midday. Cooking a little extra at dinner is one of the simplest ways to bring Belgian cuisine into lunch without extra effort.

• Stoofvlees (carbonnade flamande): beef slowly stewed in beer. Spoon reheated stew into a crusty roll or onto toasted bread with a little mustard.
• Stoemp: mashed potatoes with vegetables such as carrots, leeks or spinach. Reheat and serve with a sausage or a fried egg.
• Vol-au-vent: chicken and mushroom in a creamy sauce. Reheat the filling and eat it with bread or rice instead of puff pastry.
• Meatballs in tomato sauce or Liège-style sauce: slice cold meatballs onto bread or reheat them with their sauce.
• Chicken waterzooi: the creamy Ghent stew reheats gently as a hearty lunch soup.

Cool leftovers quickly after dinner, keep them in the fridge, and reheat until piping hot all the way through.

Belgian lunchbox combinations to pack

A good Belgian-style lunchbox combines one main bread or soup element, one fresh vegetable and one small extra such as fruit or a treat. These combinations draw on everyday Belgian food recipes and need little preparation in the morning.

Main	Fresh side	Small extra
Ham and cheese sandwich with mustard	Cucumber and radish slices	An apple
Chicken curry sandwich with lettuce	Cherry tomatoes	A speculoos biscuit
Thermos of vegetable soup	Buttered bread with cheese	A pear
Endive, apple and walnut salad	Dressing in a small pot	A slice of bread with sirop de Liège
Cold endive gratin slice	Grated carrot salad	A few grapes
Egg salad in endive leaves	Wholemeal crackers	A piece of dark chocolate

Packing tips for Belgian sandwiches and soups

Packed Belgian lunches stay fresh when wet and dry ingredients are kept apart and perishable fillings stay cold.

1. Butter the bread right to the edges so tomato or sandwich salads do not make it soggy.
2. Pack tomato slices, dressings and wet salads in a separate small container and add them just before eating.
3. Use a cool pack for fillings with mayonnaise, eggs, fish, shrimp or meat.
4. Warm a thermos with hot water for a few minutes, empty it, then fill it with soup that is piping hot.
5. Wrap sandwiches in beeswax wrap, paper or a snug box so they keep their shape.

How to adapt Belgian recipes to your taste, time and ingredients

Belgian cuisine recipes for lunch are forgiving: most rely on a simple structure that welcomes swaps. Adjust them to what you have in the fridge and how much time you can spare.

When you have five minutes

• Bread, butter, cheese and a few endive leaves or cucumber slices.
• Bread with a ready-made sandwich salad and lettuce.
• Leftover soup heated straight into a thermos.

When you have more time

• Make a pot of soup on the weekend for several weekday lunches.
• Prepare egg salad or chicken curry for two or three days of sandwiches.
• Cook extra stew or meatballs at dinner for the next day.

Simple swaps

• Vegetarian: replace ham with grilled vegetables, swap chicken curry for a chickpea curry spread, and use vegetable stock in soup.
• Lighter: mix mayonnaise with plain yoghurt in sandwich salads, or use endive leaves instead of bread.
• No grey shrimp: use other small cooked shrimp, or tuna salad for a budget version.
• No sirop de Liège: try apple butter or a thin layer of honey with cheese.
• No Herve cheese: any Abbey-style or Gouda-style cheese gives a milder result.
• Different vegetables in soup: courgette, cauliflower, pumpkin or spinach can replace part of the leeks and carrots.

Small ways to make a Belgian lunch more enjoyable

A Belgian lunch becomes more enjoyable through small details rather than complicated cooking.

• Toast the bread lightly or warm a baguette for a few minutes for a crisper bite.
• Keep a jar of good mustard, pickles or a homemade dressing at work or at home for instant flavour.
• Vary the bread through the week: wholemeal one day, baguette the next, a soft roll for the weekend.
• Add one sweet touch, such as a speculoos biscuit or a piece of fruit, to round off the meal.
• Step away from the screen and eat at a table, the way many Belgians still sit down for a bowl of soup and bread.

With bread, a pot of soup, a few endives and some dinner leftovers, everyday Belgium food recipes turn into lunches that are simple, filling and easy to vary from one day to the next.