Let’s talk sauce.
Sauces serve many functions within a recipe/dish – they can enhance flavors of different ingredients by providing a complimentary or a counterpoint flavor; they can add moisture to naturally lean foods, or when a particular cooking method is known to be drying (such as grilling/sautéing); they can even add visual or textural interest to a dish.
Before we go on, disclaimer – there is nothing wrong with sauce from a bottle. There is nothing inherently unhealthy about it, and bottled sauces are incredibly convenient for those with busy lifestyles.
However, if you are interested and have the time to make your own sauces, the benefit lies clearly in the taste department – a homemade sauce can be used to echo flavors found in the ingredients, our complimentary flavors you use in a meal and really make the meal sing.
In other words, a well-executed, recipe-specific sauce can take a dish from good to amazing. And life’s too short for mediocre food.
The other advantage of making your own sauce is that it can be surprisingly affordable, as most sauces are comprised of pan drippings, leftover ingredient scraps, and pantry staples.
The basic formula for a successful sauce is:
Liquid + Thickener + Flavorings + Finishers
There are a number of “mother sauces” in classic French cuisine that form the basis of most of the conventional sauces we see. We’re not going to discuss them all here (for the sake of time and, quite frankly, usefulness in a home kitchen), but 4 are worth mentioning:
Bechamel
Velouté
Espagnole
Tomato
[Hollandaise]
Yes, I realize there are 5 on the above list. I’m not really going to deep-dive into hollandaise, because I can’t have eggs, and a vegan Hollandaise doesn’t follow quite the same rules.
All of the remaining sauces on the above list begin with a roux – a mix of flour and fat, to which a liquid is added and then cooked until thick.
There are two parts to a roux – fat (in the form of butter, oil, or animal fat), and flour. Basically, you heat the fat, and then add an equal amount of flour. The mixture should be whisked constantly, until it has reached the desired color:
White roux: lightly browned but still very pale
Blonde roux: a little darker, nutty smell
Brown roux: dark, nutty smell and flavor.
As a roux darkens, its ability to thicken lessens. The darker the roux you use, the more you will need.
To start a roux, the first step is to choose a fat. Choosing the right fat is pivotal for the success of the dish, and choosing a roux is largely dependent on the other flavors in your dish. The default fat is usually butter. Those of us who cannot have dairy should note that you can make a roux with non-dairy butter and gluten-free flour, but it is significantly more difficult to darken the roux, mostly due to the lack of protein both in the flour (gluten) and the butter (casein). White roux is, however, definitely doable, and is made using the same method.
Once your desired roux is made, you simply add the liquid specific to your sauce, and any finishing herbs/vegetables/liquids, heating and reducing until your sauce reaches the desired thickness:
Bechamel: White Roux + dairy (milk or heavy cream)
Velouté: White Roux + White Stock (typically chicken, but also vegetable or fish)
Espagnole: Brown Roux + Brown Stock (veal or beef)
Tomato: Roux + Tomatoes – it is important to note that traditional Italian tomato sauces are, in contrast, made without the roux, but by reducing tomatoes over medium heat until thick.
Ingredients can be added to each of the basic mother sauces to compliment the particular flavors found in a dish. Let’s go over each below:
Bechamel
A Bechamel is most notably the base of most traditional macaroni and cheese dishes (with the obvious addition of cheese), bechamel also serves as the base of mustard sauces (by, not shockingly, adding mustard), and mushroom sauces (be sure to only add the mushrooms toward the end of cooking, so moisture doesn’t leech out and thin your sauce).
Note that sometimes, because of the lack of gluten and dairy proteins in non-dairy butter and gluten-free flour, gf/vegan bechamel recipes call for a different thickener (cornstarch, potato starch, arrowroot powder) that is added instead of a roux – in using an alternate method such as this, you do run the risk of losing out on the depth of flavor in your sauces (which comes from cooking the flour), though it could arguably be added in elsewhere.
Note that any white sauces (both velouté and béchamel) should not be made in an aluminum pot, as they can turn grey during cooking.
Veloute
Veloute is technically not a finished sauce, but rather simply a white roux mixed with fish, chicken, or veal stock. It is instead seen as a starting place for the making of gravies, mushroom sauces, and bisques. We tend to see it commonly as the sauce used for chicken pot pie, the gravy for Sweedish Meatballs, and bisques (like shrimp bisque).
Fortunately, velouté can easily be made with vegetable stock as a vegan/vegetarian-friendly option. We see this commonly during Thanksgiving time, in vegan mushroom gravy.
Common derivative sauces of velouté, used primarily for fish and/or poultry are:
- Chivry, used for poultry: a velouté with white wine, chervil, parsley, tarragon, shallots, and chives added
- Supreme, used for poultry: a velouté with additions of mushrooms, cream, and butter
- Vin Blanc, used for fish: a velouté with fish trim, egg yolks, and butter added
Espagnole
Where a velouté tends to be more pale in color, sauce Espagnole is darker, and used primarily with beef and game (and less commonly with fish and poultry). It is also commonly made with mirepoix (carrots and onions, and sometimes celery), to which flour is added to make the roux. From there, tomato paste is also added for both color and flavor. The liquid used is primarily beef and/or beef stock. In some variations, thickening sources other than a roux are used, such as pureed vegetables, thickening via reduction, and corn/potato/arrowroot starch.
Sauce Espagnole serves as a base for a number of well-known derivative sauces:
- Demi-glace, used for red meat and added to soups/stews: 1 part espagnole, 1 part beef stock, reduced by half
- Bordelaise, used for grilled red meat/fish: Espagnole with added red wine, shallots, peppercorns, thyme, and bey leaves, and finished with lemon juice and bone marrow
- Bourguignonne, used for eggs and beef: Espagnole with added red wine, shallots, thyme, parsley, bay leaf, and mushrooms, finished with butter and cayenne pepper.
- Cherry, used for both duck and venison: Espagnole with added port wine, pate spice, orange zest and juice, red currant jam, and cherries.
- Financiere, used for beef: Espagnole with added Madeira wine and truffle essence
- Mushroom, used for beef, veal: Espagnole with added mushrooms and butter
Tomato
Perhaps the most widely-recognized sauce, tomato sauce is traditionally (in French cuisine) made with a roux. In Italian cuisine, however, the thickness of a tomato sauce comes from the reduction of tomatoes with the sauces other ingredients: onions and garlic. We most commonly see tomato sauces on pizza, pasta, or in the recently trendy shakshuka.
Related to tomato sauce is the coulis – essentially a sauce comprised of pureed vegetables, herbs, spices, and stock. A coulis usually focuses on one vegetable as the star flavor, with other vegetables used to enhance that flavor.
Gastrique
Another sauce that is worth noting (though, not one of the mother sauces) is called a gastrique. Gatriques are generally not served on their own, but with another sauce, and their purpose is to add another layer of depth and complexity to a sauce. Gastriques are made by combining and reducing by half equal parts of sugar (in the form of sugar, honey, or jelly) and acid (vinegar, citrus, etc). They can be directly added to a sauce, or plated individually on top of another dish.
If you are adding the gastrique to your sauce, you can add it at the beginning or the end of cooking. If you are adding at the beginning, add your sugar after your aromatics (mirepoix), and caramelize it. Then add your liquids and reduce.
There you have it – a pretty comprehensive guide to all the different possibilities of sauces. Still confused? Remember the basic formula: liquid + thickener + flavor, and experiment for yourself – there are endless possibilities!
