Mother Sauce

Classic French cuisine features five mother sauces that can be enhanced with spices, herbs, meat, vegetables, and more to be made into innumerable other sauces. These foundational sauces present vastly different flavors and textures, making them ideal for hundreds of sauce variations, some famous and some not. These five mother sauce recipes are for bechamel sauce, espagnole sauce, tomato sauce, hollandaise sauce, and veloute sauce. Sometimes mayonnaise and vinaigrette are argued to have been on the original mother sauce list, but this one is the most modern version.

1. Hollandaise Sauce  

This hollandaise sauce recipe is the perfect complement for poached eggs and asparagus. For the best results, serve classic hollandaise sauce fresh, while it's still hot. This elegant recipe becomes very simple so it's easy to make a new batch for every meal. 

2. Béchamel sauce

This Béchamel sauce recipe makes a rich, creamy sauce used to enhance many French recipes. Known as one of the original mother sauces of French cuisine, it came about as an improvement upon veloute sauce. Add a few herbs to it for variety, and it goes extremely well with vegetables. Use it as a base for multiple, other French sauces and recipes. 

3. Tomato Sauce

This Provencal tomato sauce recipe is a basic of the local cuisine. Fresh tomatoes lend the sauce a bright flavor, and the addition of ham and bacon give it an incredible, smoky savory quality. Use this special tomato sauce to accent pasta, beef, and eggplant dishes.

4. Espagnole sauce

This espagnole sauce or brown sauce is one of the five, classic mother sauces of French cuisine. It is made from simmering tomato puree, herbs, and beef stock. Rumors have abounded for years that French brown sauce was named for the Spanish tomatoes used in one of its earlier versions, or that Spanish cuisine played a large part in its evolution to what we know today. Contrary to popular thought, espagnole sauce has nothing to do with Spain, but rather because of French stereotypes of Spaniards at the time.

5. Veloute sauce

This veloute sauce recipe a traditional French mother sauce, meaning that it is a foundational sauce that can be spiced up and used as a base for other sauces. This veloute sauce is very similar to béchamel, but it replaces the milk with chicken stock. Chicken stock is by far the most versatile and subtle choice for a veloute, but veal or fish stock can also be used with equally appetizing results.

Thank you:  Rebecca Franklin (French Food Expert)