How to Make Mirepoix

What is Mirepoix? It’s essentially roughly equal parts of diced onion, carrot, and celery and is a classic building block of French cuisine, Italian cuisine (soffrito), and Spanish cuisine (sofregit).  It adds a ton of flavor to food and is a staple in our kitchen, especially in colder months when we are making a lot of soups, stews, and sauces. A few favorite recipes include this Tuscan Yellow Pepper Soup, Hearty Chicken Soup, and Calamari Inzimino.

How to Make Mirepoix

We thought it was important to share with you how to make mirepoix. Most of the time, we’ll start a dish by cooking the mirepoix in butter or olive oil in a large saute pan or dutch oven. For braised meat dishes, we’ll typically add the mirepoix to the pan after we’ve initially seared the meat.

For any recipe that requires mirepoix, just dice an onion according to our step by step instructions on how to properly cut an onion here, and dice a carrot according to the instructions here.

To complete your mirepoix, you’ll just need diced celery. Rinse your celery and cut the top and bottom ends off. Slice the celery stalk in half lengthwise. If it’s very large, slice the two halves in half lengthwise again. Rotate the pieces on your cutting board and cut across to form small dice. With a sharp knife (we love this, this, and this) and a few practice rounds, you’ll be a pro in no time.

Make sure to cut everything into roughly equal size dice. We use these measuring cups for prep tasks like this. They help keep everything organized. It makes it easy to visually see how much of each ingredient you have, so that you have the right ratio.