When I first gazed upon the charcuterie counter at my local butcher shop, I was quite hazy about the differences between the pâtés, rillettes, mousses and terrines on display. They all looked like pressed meat in pots and jars! I’ve since learned the similarities and differences and I wanted to share what I’ve learned with you by writing a helpful article.

What are the similarities and differences between pâté, rillettes, mousse and terrine?

Pâté, rillettes, mousses and terrines are forcemeat dishes made of an emulsion of meat and fat. Pâtés and terrines are made with mixed meats and it’s acceptable to use these terms interchangeably. Pâtés can be spread or sliced; terrines are typically sliced. Terrines are also called pâté en terrine because they’re pâtés pressed into a terrine (dish). Rillettes are a chunky meat spread, also called potted meat. A mousse is a light and airy dish that has the texture of a souffle; it’s made with cooked ingredients that are whipped with fat. A mousse isn’t sliceable unless it’s fortified with gelatin.  

But there’s so much more to say about the similarities and differences between pâté, rillettes, mousse and terrine. Let’s take a further look into the similarities and differences: what they are, what they’re made of, how they’re prepared and how they’re served. And, as a bonus, I’ll also cover the difference between mousses and mousselines.

Defining terms: pâtés, rillettes, mousses and terrines

Let’s first get a better understanding about what these foods are.

A pâté is a forcemeat dish made of meat, fat, spices and often a flavourful booze such as wine or brandy. A terrine is basically a pâté that’s cooked in a dish called a terrine. Think of pâté as the overarching category with terrines underneath. If the dish is wrapped in pastry, it’s either a pâté en croûte or a terrine en croûte.

In their book, Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking & Curing, Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn use the terms pâté and terrine interchangeably and define them like this, “Pâtés and terrines, broadly speaking, are essentially big sausages cooked in some sort of mold, either earthenware or porcelain (en terrine), in dough (en croûte), or in skin (galantines and ballotines).”

In North America, we tend to think of pâté as a liver-based dish, but liver isn’t a required ingredient. However, by looking at recipes, I’ve noticed that I’m more likely to find liver in a pâté recipe than in a terrine recipe.

Rillettes are a chunky meat spread made of pork, fatback, another meat such as duck or rabbit and spices. It’s also called potted meat.

Mousses are light and airy and have the texture of a soufflé; a mousse is made with cooked ingredients that are whipped with fat and passed through a fine-meshed sieve—also called a tamis. (Sometimes the filtering comes before the whipping and sometimes after, depending on the recipe). A mousse isn’t sliceable unless it’s fortified with gelatin.

A few words about mousse confusion

It might just be me, but I think the term mousse leads to confusion. As defined above, a mousse takes a cooked ingredient, strains it and whips it up with fat to create something with the texture of a soufflé. But if you look online, you’ll find many recipes for chicken liver mousse that call for mixing ingredients together but not whipping them into a soufflé-like creation. These chicken liver “mousses” are light and creamy but are more accurately called a pâté.

This confusion happened to me too!

A while back, I told my husband I made chicken liver mousse; it was so light and creamy and almost tasted like dessert to me (I don’t eat sweets if you’re wondering how this could happen). But then I went back to look at the recipe and I got the name totally wrong! What I made was called Chicken Liver Terrine from the excellent book by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polycyn, Pâté, Confit, Rillette: Recipes from the Craft of Charcuterie.

Then there’s mousseline to add to the confusion …

What’s the difference between mousse & mousseline?

In cooking circles, people often think of mousse as chicken liver pâté, a smooth and rich dish made with generous amounts of butter and/or whipping cream and wine and/or brandy. But mousse is actually made from cooked ingredients that are strained and whipped with fat. A mousseline is one of the four types of pâtés; mousseline is made by puréeing meat or fish with cream and egg whites—raw ingredients—and then cooking it.

The four categories of pâté

There are four categories of pâté, based roughly on ingredients and how they’re made: country pâté, straight pâté, gratin pâté and mousseline pâté.  

Diagram: The four types of pâtés

A forcemeat map of pâtés, terrines, rillettes and mousses

I’m not sure if this will help you but here’s how I keep these dishes straight in my head (and look how nice SmartArt is now). You’ll notice the diagram below is missing other major types of forcemeat like sausages but I did that for space and to stay on topic with the types of forcemeat we’re talking about today.

Diagram: Categorizing pâtés/terrines and confit

While I was researching this topic, I noticed there were two ‘What’s the difference?’ questions that kept coming up, so I’ve included them here to set the record straight!

What’s the difference between pâté and terrine?

Basically, pâtés and terrines are meat and fat emulsions and you can use the two terms interchangeably. If you cook the mix and put in in a container afterwards, you’d probably call it a pâté. If you cook the meat and fat mix in the dish, you could call it a pâté or terrine.  

What’s the difference between pâté and rillettes?

In a pâté, the meat and fat are mixed before cooking; many pâté recipes call for grinding, mixing or puréeing the raw meat ingredients. Some pâtés are smooth and spreadable, some are firm and sliceable. Rillettes are a type of confit; the meat and fat are cooked together and then combined to make a chunky meat spread.

Pâtés, rillettes, mousses and terrines, similarities and differences #1: Ingredients

As you can see from the chart below, pâtés, rillettes, mousses and terrines contain delicious ingredients, primarily from the animal kingdom. The common ingredients are meat, fat, spices and/or aromatics.

I’ve created a chart that makes it easier to see the similarities and differences across ingredients in these foods.

Chart: A comparison of ingredients used in pâtés, terrines, rillettes and mousses

Ingredients	Pâté and terrines	Rillettes	Mousses
Pork and other meats such as duck, rabbit and game	Yes	Yes	No
Liver	Sometimes	No	Yes
Spices and/or aromatics	Yes	Yes	Yes
Port, brandy or wine	Yes	Sometimes	Yes
Stock	Sometimes	Yes	No
Heavy cream	Sometimes	No	Yes
Eggs	Sometimes	No	Yes
Butter	Sometimes	No	Yes
Bacon, caul or fatback	Yes	Yes	No
Lard, duck fat or butter to create a fat seal	Sometimes	Yes	Sometimes
Breadcrumbs and milk (for a panade)	Sometimes	No	No

Pâtés, rillettes, mousses and terrines, similarities and differences #2: How they’re prepared and cooked

There aren’t too many options for cooking pâtés, rillettes, mousses and terrines that go beyond what you’re probably used to in the kitchen. These less common preparation and cooking methods include grinding your own meat, straining a meat-based dish, using a water bath, weighing down the almost-finished product and creating an aspic topping.

Some recipes require more equipment than others and have more persnickety steps (but more on that in the next section).

Again, to give you a clearer picture, I’ve made a chart for you that includes the cooking and preparation methods most used for pâtés, rillettes, mousses and terrines. You may see the word ‘yes’ more than you’d expect for each type of dish, so I want to clarify that. If a cooking method says yes, it doesn’t mean that all recipes call for all the cooking methods that say yes. Some do, some don’t.

Chart: A comparison of preparation and cooking methods for pâtés, terrines, rillettes and mousses

Preparation or cooking method	Pâté and terrines	Rillettes	Mousses
Sauté some ingredients	Yes	No	Sometimes
Grind (meat grinder)	Yes	No	No
Blend (food processor)	Yes	No	No
Purée (blender/Magic Bullet)	Yes	No	Yes
Mix (spoon/fork/paddle attachment for stand mixer)	Yes	Yes	No
Strain through a tamis or sieve	Sometimes*	No	Yes
Simmer (low and slow)	No	Yes	No
On the stovetop	No	Yes	No
In the oven	Yes	Yes	Yes
Water bath (bain marie)	Yes	No	Yes
Press and chill	Yes	Yes	Yes
Top with fat layer	Sometimes	Yes	Sometimes
Top with aspic layer	Sometimes	No	Sometimes

*Straight pâtés that have a smooth texture might be strained through a sieve. This is common with liver pâté.

Pâtés, rillettes, mousses and terrines, similarities and differences #3: Cooking difficulty level

You may be wondering how easy it is to make each of these types of foods. Out of pâtés, rillettes, mousses and terrines, the easiest thing to make is rillettes, for sure. You dump ingredients into a pot for slow cooking, remove bones, mix the rest of it together, put it in a dish and cover it with a layer of melted fat. I LOVE how easy it is to make rillettes!

After that, mousses might be the second easiest to make—but this is my thought based on reading recipes not from experience. (I haven’t replaced the food processor I gave away years ago and since it’s an essential tool for mousses, I haven’t made one yet).

Then in the third easiest (also known as most difficult) position, it might be a tie for pâtés and terrines. This is because for recipes that call for grinding your own meat, you need special equipment (a meat grinder) and you need to be fanatic about keeping the meat, fat and grinding equipment cold during the process. [If the meat isn’t kept cold enough, the mix doesn’t emulsify properly, and you could end up with a terrine that doesn’t stick together and is swimming in a pool of fat.] This I find daunting (plus I don’t have a meat grinder) so I haven’t ventured into the recipes that appear complex to me.

Fortunately, the difficulty level depends on which recipe you use; you can find easy versions of all types of recipes. I recommend looking for recipes that say they’re easy or reading recipes and trying the ones that seem easy; my heuristic for that is fewer ingredients = easier recipe. You can advance to more complicated ones later, as your skills and patience evolve.

And, from my personal experience, I’ve used several chicken liver pâté recipes that were surprisingly easy to make. But because they’re messier (liver, ewww), chicken liver pâté can never compete with rillettes on the easy-cooking scale. But not everything is a competition, is it?

Pâtés, rillettes, mousses and terrines, similarities and differences #4: How they’re served

At the dinner table, anything goes. No pâté or terrine? Serve rillettes or a mousse and vice versa. That’s one of the great things about these meat dishes that are typically appetizers. But still, I want to paint a clearer picture, so I’ve made you a chart.

As you’ll see from this chart, pâtés, rillettes, mousses and terrines are versatile and you can serve them interchangeably in many home circumstances. If you’re not sure what to serve them with, follow the guidance of the recipe or just go wild and put a delicious looking spread on your plate and dig in!

Chart: A comparison of serving options for pâtés, terrines, rillettes and mousses

Serving option or accompaniment	Pâté and terrines	Rillettes	Mousses
Crusty bread	Yes	Yes	Yes
Sandwich filling/spread	Yes	Yes	Yes
Crudité	Yes	Yes	Yes
As part of a ploughman’s lunch	Yes	Yes	Yes
As part of a charcuterie board	Yes	Yes	Yes
Pickled vegetables (gherkins, olives, etc.)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cheese, nuts, hard-boiled eggs	Yes	Yes	Yes
Pickled fruit, jam or fruit sauce	Yes	Yes	Yes
As pasta stuffing	Yes	Yes	Yes
Topping for canapés	Yes	Yes	Yes

Conclusion

Well, that’s all for now, folks. In conclusion, pâtés, rillettes, mousses and terrines are similar and different—and now you know how! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about these similarities and differences as much as I have!