Level Up - Mother Sauces

Level Up is a new series from Bon Appétit Management Company focused on cooking techniques that our chefs use every day to elevate their from-scratch dishes — and you can, too! Read the tips, watch the video, and try the recipes. We’re collecting all of the Level Up installments here.

Every French sauce has an origin. It’s time to meet the mother sauces.

In the European culinary tradition, “mother sauces” are the fundamental sauces budding chefs first learn and the building blocks for a repertoire of more complex, artful sauces. There are five sauce “families,” and each has a mother or leading sauce:

1. Béchamel: a milk-based sauce, thickened with roux 
2. Velouté: a sauce made of light veal, chicken, or fish stock, thickened with roux 
3. Espagnole (Brown Sauce): a sauce made of dark brown stock, thickened with roux 
4. Tomato Sauce: a sauce made of tomatoes, occasionally thickened with roux or simply reduced to the preferred consistency 
5. Hollandaise: a sauce made of butter, thickened with egg yolks

From these basic sauces chefs create a seemingly endless set of “small” sauces, from deeply rich bordelaise (mother sauce: espagnole), to cheesy mornay (mother sauce: béchamel), to béarnaise (mother sauce: hollandaise). 

• We gave you a taste, now it’s time to savor. Get saucy with Food52’s in-depth guide to the five mother sauces. 
• Velouté isn’t just for drizzling over meats or fish. Try Food & Wine’s Three-Mushroom Velouté for a savory white drizzling sauce that’s great for plant-based eaters and omnivores alike. 
• Espagnole had a saucy start. Learn the history of this Spanish-inspired sauce, from royal wedding gossip to culinary “snubs,” from Escoffier School of Culinary Arts.