Pottage or potage (/pɒˈ-, pəˈ-/, French: [potaʒ] ^ⓘ; from Old French pottage 'food cooked in a pot') is a thick soup or stew made by boiling vegetables, grains, and, if available, meat or fish. It was a staple food for many centuries. The word pottage comes from the same Old French root as potage, which is a dish of more recent origin.

Pottage ordinarily consisted of various ingredients, sometimes those easily available to peasants. It could be kept over the fire for a period of days, during which time some of it could be eaten, and more ingredients added. The result was a dish that was constantly changing. Pottage consistently remained a staple of poor people's diet throughout most of 9th to 17th-century Europe. The pottage that these people ate was much like modern-day soups. When wealthier people ate pottage, they would add more expensive ingredients such as meats.

Pottage was typically boiled for several hours until the entire mixture took on a homogeneous texture and flavour; this was intended^{[citation needed]} to break down complex starches and to ensure the food was safe for consumption. It was often served, when possible, with bread.

In the King James Bible translation of the story of Jacob and Esau in the Book of Genesis, Esau, being famished, sold his birthright (the rights of the eldest son) to his twin brother Jacob in exchange for a meal of "bread and pottage of lentils" (Gen 25:29–34). This incident is the origin of the phrase a "mess of pottage" (which is not in any Biblical text) to mean a bad bargain involving short-term gain and long-term loss.

In the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition translation of the Bible, the prophet Elisha purifies a pot of poisoned pottage that was set before the sons of the prophets (2 Kings 4:38–41).

Pottage was a staple of the medieval English diet. During the Middle Ages it was usually made with grains, legumes, vegetables and occasionally meats. In Middle English, thick pottages (stondyng) made with cereals, kidneys, shredded meat, sometimes thickened with egg yolks and bread crumbs were called by various names like brewet, egerdouce, mortrew, mawmenee, blancmange and blance dessore. Thinner pottages were said to be ronnyng. Frumenty was a pottage made with freshly-cleaned wheat grain that was boiled until it burst, allowed to cool, then boiled with broth and either cow's milk or almond milk, and thickened with egg yolk and flavored with sugar and spices.

The earliest known cookery manuscript in the English language, The Forme of Cury, written by the court chefs of King Richard II, contains several pottage recipes including one made from cabbage, ham, onions and leeks. Google Books and Internet Archive. A slightly later manuscript from the 1430s is called Potage Dyvers ("Various Pottages"). During the Tudor period, a good many English peasants' diets consisted almost solely of pottage and self-cultivated vegetables, such as carrots. An early 17th-century British recipe for pottage was made by boiling mutton and oatmeal with violet leaves, endive, chicory, strawberry leaves, spinach, langdebeefe, marigold flowers, scallions and parsley.

Potage was a common dish in the medieval cuisine of northern France, and it increased in popularity from the High Middle Ages onward. The word "potage" as a culinary term appears as early as the mid-13th century, describing a wide variety of boiled and simmered foods. Some potages were very liquid, while others were relatively solid with ingredients like bread, pulses, or rice that fully absorbed the liquid. Other potages resembled ragoûts and other dishes that were recognized as entrées in the 17th century and later. Still others were porrées of vegetables.