Tomato Sauce. Aurelie Luylier / Pixabay.com / 2017 / CC0 1.0
There are so many different types of sauces in the word: cooked, fresh, fermented, savoury, sweet. Some food writers have said that sauces are the glory of French cooking.
Sauce recipes in this section have largely been selected to illustrate or support entries in the encyclopaedia.
See also: Sauces (main entry)
This is a cheat’s version of the classic French sauce, Aioli. It doesn’t pretend to be the real thing, but it is very good for what it is: a garlic-flavoured mayonnaise.
This classical French regional sauce is traditionally served with seafood, poached fish, and delicate green vegetable such as asparagus. It has only four simple ingredients that are apparent: the main ingredient is really time.
This is gorgeous. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea — chances are, if you don’t like strong tastes like horseradish with your beef, you’re not going to want blue cheese.
For Thanksgiving or Christmas (or anytime), consider reviving an old tradition which has just about vanished completely — bread sauce. Bread sauce was always a classic accompaniment to pork or chicken.
Nice served warm (but not hot.) Good with ice cream, over slices of white cake, etc.
This sauce is so dead easy to make — it really would be more work to go to the store to buy it!
In the category of “waste not, want not”, the next time you pit a bunch of cherries for a recipe, get a double return out of all your work by using the cherry pits to make Cherry Pit Vinegar. Cherry vinegar is good brushed on grilled meats, in salad dressings, and even splodged into a Go to recipe
Chimichurri is an Argentine sauce. You can use it in a zillion ways — as a vinaigrette over salad, as a marinade for fish, poultry or meat, etc.
Cranberry Sauce should be healthy — after all, it’s cranberries! Most though are overloaded with a boatload of calories from added refined sugar — at a time of year, usually, when you’d rather use the calories up on so many other things.
This is a thick, spooning sauce that you are meant to spoon onto a hot dessert, where it melts. Good with hot mincemeat pies or steamed puddings.
This is a sugar and fruit pie recipe from Cumberland County, England, that in the late 1700s reflected the growing variety of food ingredients available owing to trade with the Caribbean.
Use this sauce hot with vegetables particularly artichokes, fish or seafood such as crab or lobster.
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This is a dipping sauce to serve with grilled fish.
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This is a dipping sauce to serve with barbequed meat at the table.
Good on hot cooked veg such as asparagus, green beans, Brussel sprouts, etc.
Called salsa de chile verde in Mexico.
A classic Middle Eastern condiment paste.
A gorgeous fresh salsa; looks and tastes great. Serve with nachos as a dip, or as a side relish with a meal.
Marie Rose Sauce is a simple, classic sauce to go with shrimp, battered fish, or French fries. It’s very quick and easy to make, and there’s no cooking required, just a quick stir.
Just be careful not to overwork the mayonnaise in the blender.
This just takes 5 minutes to make! Note, this is a pouring sauce, not a thick jelly.
This mojito sauce has a wonderful mellow lime, mint and run flavour to it, without the mint overpowering. It’s particularly good with grilled seafood such as grilled calamari, shrimp or scallops, but also try it with other things such as grilled vegetables
Parsley Sauce is a simple, very old, honest English white sauce with parsley added for colour and freshness. It’s very good with fish and poached foods.
This is an easy, classical sauce from the south of France that you can whip up in a blender or food processor. It’s so little work and time that you can easily squeeze this in on a weeknight.
Use for desserts. Great over ice cream, or chocolate cake, or both.
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Most rhubarb recipes will have you stew them in sugar. If you want to make a less sweet version, try this version.
Good with steamed puddings, crumbles, Apple Betty, etc.
This is a fresh tomato sauce (as opposed to cooked.) Serve as you would a relish, particularly with Mexican food.
A classic, fresh Mexican chile sauce.
This is a modern take on the classic orange sauce to serve with Duck or trout. A more traditional Sauce Bigarade would be based on sugar and vinegar, use veal stock or braising juices, not use any liqueur, and not use flour or butter.
This is a classic Middle Eastern condiment.
You make this in a roasting pan while what you have roasted is resting on a carving board, covered.
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Can be used as a baste for chicken, and as a baste for ribs towards the end of grilling, barbequing or smoking. Can also be used as a sauce served at the table.
This is a very easy version of a tapenade that you make in your blender.
Tartar sauce lovers will rejoice at this recipe. It’s quick and easy to make out of ingredients you may have in your fridge every day; it’s tangy and refreshing like the best tartar sauces you’ve ever had, and it doesn’t taste chemically.
A great cooked Mexican sauce, typically for use as a sauce within other recipes. It has a clean, authentic taste and thick, meaty texture.
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A dead-easy recipe for a tomato sauce to be used with Mexican dishes.
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This is hot. Makes any commercial stuff seem like child’s play.
This is a very versatile dip / fresh sauce base that can be flavoured in a zillion different ways. Flavour it up and make it your own; we give some possible options below.
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A dead easy, tasty paste to make, that you can use either as a condiment or as a cooking ingredient.