Cookbook:Sauces

Sauces are thickened liquid additions to a recipe, used to enhance the flavor or appearance, or to add moisture. In the 1800s, the French chefs Antonin Carême and Auguste Escoffier developed a systematic categorization of sauces, based on five "mother sauces". All sauces were considered to be a variation of one of these sauces. As other cuisines and ingredients have become more common to world cuisine, the number of mother sauces and sauce families has expanded slightly, but most sauces can be seen as a variation or adaptation of a few basics.

The sauces below are grouped by their family. The first five groups are the traditional sauce families, with the modern additions following. Except for the Dessert family, the top sauce in each family is that family's "mother sauce". Many of the mother sauces use a roux as the thickening agent. Roux itself is not really a sauce.

White milk-based sauces

White stock-based sauces

Velouté sauce

Brown sauces

Egg-based emulsions

Tomato-based sauces

Spaghetti sauce

Purees

Fermented sauces

Vinaigrettes

Vinaigrette
Beurre Blanc
Caramelized Sweet and Sour Onion Marmalade
Champagne Vinaigrette
French Dressing
Honey Mustard Salad Dressing
Mango Atchar
Neapolitan Anchovy Sauce
Red Pepper and Goat Cheese sauce
Senf - German Style Sweet Mustard
Sweet and Sour