In cooking, a sauce is liquid, cream or semi-solid food served on or used in preparing other foods.

Sauces are not normally

consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to another dish. Sauce is a French word taken from
the Latin salsa,[1] meaning salted. Possibly the oldest sauce recorded is garum, the fish sauce used by the Ancient Greeks.
Sauces need a liquid component, but some sauces (for example, pico de gallo salsa or chutney) may contain more solid
components than liquid. Sauces are an essential element in cuisines all over the world.
Sauces may be used for savory dishes or for desserts. They can be prepared and served cold, like mayonnaise, prepared cold but
served lukewarm like pesto, or can be cooked like bechamel and served warm or again cooked and served cold like apple sauce.
Some sauces are industrial inventions like Worcestershire sauce, HP Sauce, or nowadays mostly bought ready-made like soy
sauce or ketchup, others still are freshly prepared by the cook. Sauces for salad are called salad dressing. Sauces made
bydeglazing a pan are called pan sauces.
A cook who specializes in making sauces is called a saucier.
Contents
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1 Cuisines
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1.1 French cuisine

1.2 Italian cuisine

1.2.1 Savory sauces used for dressing meats, fish and vegetables

1.2.2 Savory sauces used to dress pasta dishes

1.2.3 Dessert sauces

1.3 Asian cuisines

1.4 Latino and Spanish American cuisines

1.5 British cuisine

2 Examples of sauces

3 See also

4 References
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4.1 Footnotes

4.2 Citations

5 Further reading

6 External links

Cuisines[edit]
French cuisine[edit]

Hollandaise sauce atop a salmonEggs Benedict

Sauces in French cuisine date back to the Middle Ages. There were many hundreds of sauces in the culinary repertoire. In 'classical'
French cooking (19th and 20th century until nouvelle cuisine), sauces were a major defining characteristic of French cuisine.
In the early 19th century, the chef Marie-Antoine Carme created an extensive list of sauces, many of which were original recipes. It
is unknown how many sauces Carme is responsible for, but it is estimated to be in the hundreds. The cream sauce, in its most
popular form around the world, was concurrently created by another chef, Dennis Leblanc, working in the same kitchen as Carme.
He considered the four grande sauces to be espagnole, velout, allemande, and bchamel, from which a large variety of petites
sauces could be composed.[2]
In the early 20th century, the chef Auguste Escoffier refined Carme's list of basic sauces in the four editions of his classic Le Guide
Culinaire[3] and its abridged English translation A Guide to Modern Cookery.[4] He dropped allemande as he considered it a variation
of velout,[4] and added hollandaise and sauce tomate, defining the five fundamental "mother sauces" still used today:

Sauce Bchamel, milk-based sauce, thickened with a white roux.

Sauce Espagnole, a fortified brown veal stock sauce, thickened with a brown roux.

Sauce Velout, light stock-based sauce, thickened with a roux or a liaison, a mixture of egg yolks and cream.

Sauce Hollandaise, an emulsion of egg yolk, butter and lemon or vinegar.

Sauce Tomate, tomato-based

A sauce which is derived from one of the mother sauces by augmenting with additional ingredients is sometimes called a "daughter
sauce" or "secondary sauce."[5] Most sauces commonly used in classical cuisine are daughter sauces. For example, Bchamel can
be made into Mornay by the addition of grated cheese, and Espagnole becomes Bordelaise with the addition of reduction of red
wine, shallots, and poached beef marrow.
In the mid-20th century, a specialized implement, the French sauce spoon, was introduced to aid in eating sauce in French cuisine
and now enjoys some popularity at high-end restaurants.

In the European traditions, sauces are often served in a sauce boat.

Italian cuisine[edit]
Italian sauces reflect the rich variety of the Italian cuisine and can be divided in several categories including:
Savory sauces used for dressing meats, fish and vegetables[edit]
Examples are:

Bagna cuda from Piedmont

Salmoriglio from Sicily

Gremolata from Milan

Salsa verde from Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany

Savory sauces used to dress pasta dishes[edit]

Tagliatelle al Rag alla Bolognese

There are thousands of such sauces, and many towns have traditional sauces. Among the internationally well-known are:

Rag alla Bolognese from Bologna

Pesto from Genoa

Carbonara and Amatriciana from Lazio

Dessert sauces[edit]

Zabajone from Piedemont

Crema pasticcera made with eggs and milk and common in the whole peninsula

"Crema al mascarpone" used to make Tiramis and to dress panettone at Christmas and common in the North of the
country.

Asian cuisines[edit]

Sauce being brushed on satay in the hawker food court at in Tanjung Aru beach, Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia.

Sauces used in traditional Japanese cuisine are usually based on shyu (soy sauce), miso or dashi. Ponzu, citrusflavored soy sauce, and yakitori no tare, sweetened rich soy sauce, are examples of shoyu-based sauces. Miso-based sauces
include gomamiso, miso with ground sesame, and amamiso, sweetened miso. In modern Japanese cuisine, the word "sauce"
often refers to Worcestershire sauce, introduced in the 19th century and modified to suit Japanese
tastes. Tonkatsu, okonomiyaki, and yakisobasauces are based on this sauce. Japanese horseradish or wasabi sauce is used
on sushi and sashimi or mixed with soy sauce to make wasabi-joyu.

Some sauces in Chinese cuisine are soy sauce, doubanjiang, hoisin sauce, sweet bean sauce, chili sauces, oyster sauce,
and sweet and sour sauce.

Korean cuisine uses sauces such as doenjang, gochujang, samjang, and soy sauce.

Southeast Asian cuisines, such as Thai and Vietnamese cuisine, often use fish sauce, made from fermented fish.

Indian cuisines use sauces such as tomato-based curry sauces, tamarind sauce, coconut milk-/paste-based sauces, and
chutneys. There are substantial regional variations in Indian cuisine, but many sauces use a seasoned mix of onion, ginger
and garlic paste as the base of various gravies and sauces. Various cooking oils, ghee and/orcream are also regular
ingredients in Indian sauces.

Indonesian cuisine uses typical sauces such as kecap manis (sweet soy sauce), bumbu kacang (peanut sauce)
and tauco, while popular hot and spicy sauces are sambal,dabu-dabu and rica-rica.

Latino and Spanish American cuisines[edit]

Salsas ("sauces" in Spanish) such as pico de gallo (salsa tricolor), salsa cocida, salsa verde, chile, and salsa roja are a
crucial part of many Latino and Spanish-American cuisines in the Americas. Typical ingredients include tomato, onion, and
spices; thicker sauces often contain avocado. Mexican cuisine features sauces which may contain chocolate, seeds, and
chiles collectively known by the Nahua name mole(compare guacamole). Argentine cooking uses more Italian-derived sauces,
such as tomato sauce, cream sauce, or pink sauce (the two mixed).

Peruvian cuisine uses sauces based mostly in different varieties of aj combined with several ingredients most notably
salsa huancana based on fresh cheese and salsa de ocopa based on peanuts or nuts.

British cuisine[edit]
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to
reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2015)
In traditional British cuisine, gravy is a sauce used on roast dinner. The sole survivor of the medieval bread-thickened sauces, bread
sauce is one of the oldest sauces in British cooking. Apple sauce, mint sauce andhorseradish sauce are used on meat

(pork, lamb and beef respectively). Salad cream is sometimes used on salads. Ketchup and brown sauce are used on fast-food type
dishes. Strong English mustard is also used on various foods, as is Worcestershire sauce. Custard is a popular dessert sauce.
Other popular sauces include mushroom sauce, marie rose sauce (as used in a prawn cocktail), whiskey sauce (for serving with
Haggis) and cheddar sauce (as used in cauliflower or macaroni and cheese). In contemporary British cuisine, owing to the wide
diversity of British society today, there are also many sauces that are of British origin but based upon the cuisine of other countries,
particularly former colonies such as India.

Caramel sauce

Examples of sauces[edit]
Main article: List of sauces

Sauces

Mushroom sauce

Sauce barnaise or Barnaise sauce made of clarified butter and egg yolks flavored with tarragon shallots and chervil

Applesauce

Bread sauce

A beef steak served withpeppercorn sauce prepared with five types of peppers

See also[edit]