Learn To Cook: Easy Sauces

Learn To Cook Sauces

This is the second in a series of answer posts to reader-submitted questions. Some of these posts may be incorporated into the revised edition of the Learn to Cook book.

“Sauces! I can get by making meat and veggies, but I have no idea how to throw together a quick sauce to jazz it up (like a lemon butter or white wine garlic)! I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Sounds simple enough, but I can’t make a lemon butter sauce to save my life.”

Okay! Great questions! We got this, team! Easy sauces, coming right up. But first. Let’s dish.


Sauces serve many purposes. They might add a complementary flavor or texture to the main dish to balance it out.  Think about the classic pairing of a fat, succulent bratwurst with a sharp mustard that cuts the richness, or the opposite idea: tender asparagus with a tart, eggy Hollandaise to add richness. Texturally, you might consider the combination of a sweet, sticky fruit chutney alongside salty, charred meats or a slick garlic aioli on a crunchy crostini. Sauces might also enhance a dish by matching its flavor, rather than contrasting. This is a little trickier to do; it works best when the main dish is mildly seasoned — think of baked chicken and chicken gravy, or broiled white fish with anchovy butter melted over top.

Sauces are also a lifesaver to overcooked meats. A dry chicken breast or fish fillet becomes edible again with a pat of compound butter melted on top, or covered in a cream sauce. That’s not to say we should aim for overcooked as an excuse to make a buttery sauce, but it’s a good trick to remember.

And of course, sauces also add visual appeal, as in bright red raspberry sauce on chocolate cake.

To close: Sauces make things fancier than they were before. Learn to use them to your advantage.

I’ll start with an uncooked, super easy sauce that goes great over grilled, roasted, or baked meats and seafood and also goes well with boiled or roasted potatoes, steamed green beans and summer squash, and fresh sliced tomatoes. And, omigaw, it’s stupendous on a simple cheese omelet. It’s a spicy Argentinian sauce called Chimichurri and there are endless variations.

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Chimichurri

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star

4.8 from 5 reviews

  • Author: Hilah Johnson
  • Prep Time: 10 mins
  • Total Time: 10 minutes
  • Category: Sauce
  • Cuisine: South American

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1/2 cup minced, packed cilantro or parsley (or a mix of both)
  • 6 tablespoons red wine vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced (2 teaspoons)
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/41/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, depending on your taste for the hot’n’spicy
  • Optional: 1/4 cup minced onion (white, yellow, red, or shallots)

Instructions

  1. Combine all ingredients and let stand at room temperature for at least 10 minutes and up to 2 hours before serving.
  2. This will keep refrigerated up to 48 hours. Makes about 3/4 cup of sauce.

Notes

Variations:
Substitute lemon, lime, or orange juice for the vinegar to make a citrusy sauce for seafood
With parsley, add a teaspoon of fresh thyme or mint for a sauce well-suited to chicken and lamb
Add a 1/2 teaspoon toasted cumin seeds for an earthy touch that goes even better with beef

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Share a photo and tag us — we can't wait to see what you've made!

If you vary the basic recipe far enough, you’ll come to the land of persillade and gremolata, which are chopped herb condiments of the French and Italian persuasions, respectively.

For Persillade, just combine the following and serve immediately atop cooked meats and fish, or stir into bean or seafood soups just before serving to add a bright, clean flavor and a shot of color:

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Persillade

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star

4.8 from 5 reviews

  • Author: Hilah Johnson
  • Prep Time: 5 mins
  • Total Time: 5 minutes
  • Category: Sauce
  • Cuisine: French

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1/2 cup chopped parsley (flat leaf if you can get it; it looks prettier in this sauce)
  • 2 cloves minced garlic
  • 23 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • Optional, if you like this sort of thing: 1 anchovy fillet, mashed

Instructions

  1. Combine all ingredients and serve right away. Make about 3/4 cup persillade.

Did you make this recipe?

Share a photo and tag us — we can't wait to see what you've made!

 

For a top-notch white wine sauce, make a Beurre Blanc (“white butter“), an easy French sauce that uses the proteins and lecithin in butter to hold the elements together in a smooth, rich, buttery sauce for use over seafood or chicken. It’s a great sauce to add a little fat and flavor to lean meats. At the Palace Cafe in New Orleans, I had blackened catfish topped with a Crystal beurre blanc and it was heavenly. Some beurre blanc recipes (like the Palace Cafe’s) use heavy cream in addition to the butter to help stabilize the sauce, but the original recipe didn’t use it and I find it rich enough without. If you want to try it with cream for a special occasion, add 2 tablespoons heavy cream to the wine mixture after it’s reduced, reheat to a simmer, then whisk in the butter as directed. You can also add any fresh herbs you like, thyme, tarragon, and basil are particularly nice.

This is actually beer and lime juice, not white wine and lemon juice. I call it “beer blanc” and it’s lovely.

 

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Beurre Blanc

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star

4.8 from 5 reviews

  • Author: Hilah Johnson
  • Cook Time: 15 mins
  • Total Time: 15 minutes
  • Yield: 4 1x

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1/2 cup white wine (or beer!)
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons minced shallot (green onion may be used instead)
  • 1 teaspoon minced garlic (optional)
  • 48 tablespoons cold butter, cut into 8-16 pieces (in other words, each piece = 1/2 tablespoon)
  • Optional: 2 tablespoons heavy cream, fresh herbs

Instructions

  1. Heat the wine, shallot, garlic in a small pot over low heat.
  2. Simmer until reduced to about 1 tablespoon of liquid; this may take 7-10 minutes. (Add the cream and fresh herbs now, if using)
  3. Add the cold butter two pieces at a time, stirring with a whisk until almost melted before adding another two bits.
  4. Continue adding the butter, two pieces at a time, until there are only two pieces left.
  5. Remove from heat and add the two remaining bits of cold butter. Swirl the pan until it’s melted and serve immediately

Notes

The finished sauce should be uniformly glossy and about the consistency of bottled Catalina dressing or heavy cream, but the more butter you add, the thicker it will be. For a more wine-tasting sauce, use the lesser amount of butter.

If it begins to separate as you are adding in the butter, it’s too hot. Remove it from the burner (which should be as low as possible) and whisk in some more butter off the heat until it comes together again.

Leftover sauce can be kept in the refrigerator for up to one week and used as a flavored butter to saute vegetables!

You can also use red wine to make “beurre rouge” but I ain’t tried it personally.

Did you make this recipe?

Share a photo and tag us — we can't wait to see what you've made!

 

Reduced to a thick liquid. A “thiquid”? Indeed.

Adding the butter to the reduction

The finished consistency, shallot bits and all. This would be awesome on grilled flank steak.

And if those aren’t enough for you, here are some other recipes from previous posts:

Tartar sauce for fish and seafood, and even French fries

Pico de Gallo for all your fiestas

Cream gravy for chicken fried steak or chicken and mashed potatoes

How to make a pan sauce for steak using red wine and the browned bits from the skillet

This mango salsa is great on fish or chicken

29 Comments

  1. Morgan on August 14, 2012 at 2:20 pm

    Nicely done, thanks for sharing, Hilah!






    • Hilah on August 14, 2012 at 4:11 pm

      Thanks, Morgan! Glad you found it useful.

  2. Kyle Williams on August 14, 2012 at 4:02 pm

    Always good stuff….






    • Hilah on August 14, 2012 at 4:09 pm

      Thank you, Kyle!

  3. Angela on August 14, 2012 at 4:29 pm

    Thanks so much for posting these great sauces. I am so excited that you chose my question to answer as one of your posts. I actually made your Chick Fil Gay sandwich the other day and they were delectable! Thanks again!

    • Hilah on August 14, 2012 at 4:34 pm

      No problemo, Angela! I hope these ideas help you in the kitchen to mix things up a little. 🙂

  4. nate on August 14, 2012 at 8:02 pm

    Thanks, Hilah. we love your stuff and humour . My partner is pretty fussy but it’s been smooth sailing since we found you. he even took photo’s of the plate to show you he loved it! he has Aspergers syndrome so it was a big deal introducing new things to the diets. thanks for everything!

    • Hilah on August 15, 2012 at 9:23 am

      Hi Nate!
      That’s great news. Thank you for sharing your cooking success and making my day! 🙂

  5. Ricardo Teixeira on August 15, 2012 at 3:50 pm

    Good stuff. Oh, the chimichurri… 🙂 Thanks for sharing, Hilah dudette!






    • Hilah on August 15, 2012 at 3:52 pm

      I love that stuff! Thanks for writing, Ricardo my man!

  6. Christa on August 19, 2012 at 7:04 pm

    I am so looking forward to trying this! I have been trying to come up with various ways to cook chicken breast, tilapia filets, or ground turkey… you have provided some great sounding sauces to try with them! Thank you.

    • Hilah on August 20, 2012 at 7:39 am

      Have fun with these, Christa! Thanks for writing. 🙂

  7. Rika on August 21, 2012 at 3:02 am

    Aloha Miss Hilah, just stumbled upon your wonderful website via Another Cooking page I follow. Your Funny & so informative. I love the simplicity that you show us that cooking is not scary. I do cook things but I always want to try something new. I hope I do these Tasty Dishes justice. Thanks again for sharing as A Mommy of A picky toddler I hope that I can introduce him to good home-cooked meals instead of the Fast food junk that children want. Mahalo






    • Hilah on August 21, 2012 at 9:22 am

      Aloha, Rika! I’m very happy you found me! Thank you for your kind words – you’ve made my day. I hope you find some recipes on my site that your toddler will eat. 🙂 Have fun cooking!

  8. luka on August 28, 2012 at 8:44 pm

    i cook for my shrimp,over low to medium heat add,4tbs olilve oil,1teas dill,1teasroasted garlic 1/4 ginger,1/4 rose mary leaves.cook until boiling point add shrimp cook for 5 mins..i add more olive oil,this way there will be sauce left over to pour over shimp.if frozen shrimp cook longer.

    • Hilah on August 29, 2012 at 8:24 am

      Sounds delicious, Luka! I love the ginger and rosemary idea.

  9. Bill on January 28, 2014 at 8:00 pm

    Sauced !! Thanks!

    Bill

  10. Gene Cox on August 13, 2014 at 11:20 pm

    My good friend served me an Angus steak the other day with Lobster Zoo (zu?) sauce with two types of mushrooms the other day and now I am into learning to make sauces. Thanks for sauces 101!






    • Hilah on August 17, 2014 at 10:18 am

      Was it lobster jus (pronounced like “zhoo)? I’ve never heard of that! Have fun with sauces, Gene. They can really amp up a meal. 🙂

  11. Anthony odhiambo on July 1, 2015 at 2:38 am

    Hi i want to be professional chef what do i do and i love cooking please help me

  12. Julie Ann Capioso on January 4, 2017 at 4:13 am

    Thanks for this:-)

  13. jay on January 11, 2017 at 1:53 am

    this is very very useful thanks to you hilah

  14. Freya Osborne on March 1, 2017 at 8:41 pm

    Delicious sauces. I need to try these at home. Nice sharing.

  15. Mary on April 29, 2018 at 5:32 pm

    Thank you, thank you. For 40 years I’ve tried to figure out sauces. I’m not a great cook, but I do realize sauces can make the dish. Now I have practical information I can use daily. ! Great post !

    • Hilah on April 30, 2018 at 4:32 pm

      That’s great, Mary! Enjoy these sauce ideas!

  16. Ava Jones on August 31, 2018 at 3:30 am

    Thank you Hilah for your list of recipes. Adding homemade sauce to your meal is great, but everyone’s tolerance for spice is different. Make sure you start off mild and then gradually increase the heat until you find your sort of spice level.

  17. Kashif on June 26, 2020 at 1:03 am

    Hilah dear thanks for sharing Sauces Recipe…. It is truly awsome

  18. Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey on September 15, 2020 at 1:44 pm

    Excellent input. Can I offer a portuguese sauce? Escabeche ( isca BE ch). Onion tomato garlic 2 each salt pepper chop all add bay fry in olive oil 10 minutes slowly then add 2 soupspoons vinegar. Brings a cold fish to life.

  19. Tammy on May 16, 2022 at 4:10 am

    The title says thirteen. Even counting the links, there’s only 10 that I see.

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