The loveFOOD guide to... sauces and gravy


Updated on 07 May 2015 | 0 Comments

From lasagne to your Sunday lunch, good food always needs proper sauces and/or gravy. Here's our guide to the classics.

The great French chef Auguste Escoffier built upon the work of earlier chefs, particularly Marie-Antoine Carême, to give the world five 'mother sauces'. It is from these five sauces that all the other sauces (called 'daughter sauces') in Western gastronomy can be made.

The five mother sauces

Béchamel sauce

The easiest of the five to make as you don’t need to add stock. Béchamel is created by adding milk to a roux (a mixture of butter and flour cooked over a low heat). It produces a shiny white sauce with a wide variety of uses. Adding cheese, for example, turns it into a 'mornay sauce'. 

Michel Roux Jr's cheese and ham pie recipe

Espagnole sauce

Pronounced ‘es-span-yol’ (French for 'Spanish'), this heavy sauce uses veal stock and tomatoes to give a strong, rich flavour. A dark stock made from roasted bones is needed, as is tomato purée. Because of its strong flavour this sauce is the foundation for extra flavours such as mushroom or port, and is best served with game and rich meats. 

The Hairy Bikers' meat loaf with gravy recipe

Hollandaise sauce

A very rich sauce made with clarified butter and eggs (think of it as a cooked mayonnaise), traditionally served on top of poached eggs for Eggs Benedict, as well as asparagus. It also works really well with seafood, as well as fennel. 

Cheddar fisherman's pie recipe

Tomato sauce

No, not ketchup... we mean a thick tomato sauce, similar to the kind you might use on pizza. The classic French version is flavoured with salt pork and thickened with a roux. 

Fresh pappardelle with tomato and basil sauce recipe

Velouté sauce

The name comes from the French for 'velvet' and this sauce should be as shiny and smooth as a béchamel. Indeed it is made in a similar way, but instead of milk a light stock such as chicken of fish is used. 

How to make chicken stock

Classic British gravy

Of course the above sauces are all very well and good, and you should try to make them at least once. But more often than not the most popular sauce in the UK is gravy. The best way to do this is to simmer and reduce pre-made chicken or beef stock until it thickens.

You can sometimes make gravy from the juice that comes out of lamb or beef, but today’s joints are so small and lean compared to that of the past that you might not get enough, although you can always add what there is to your stock. Remember, homemade gravy is always going to be better than shop-bought instant granules. 

Sunday roast chicken recipe

This is a classic lovefood article

More sauces articles and recipes:

Hot sausage roast recipe

Mini Yorkshire puddings with sausages and roast shallot gravy recipe

Homemade pork sausages with onion gravy recipe

Marco Pierre White's macaroni cheese with soft boiled eggs recipe

Lawrence Dallaglio's lasagne recipe 

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