The 5 Grand Sauces Every Cook Should Know (2024)

FAQs

The 5 Grand Sauces Every Cook Should Know? ›

The five mother sauces are hollandaise, tomato (sauce tomat), bechamel, Espagnole, and veloute. French chef Auguste Escoffier identified the five mother sauces, forever associating them with French cuisine. However, mother sauces are relevant in all modern cooking practices.

The five mother sauces are hollandaise, tomato (sauce tomat), bechamel, Espagnole, and veloute. French chef Auguste Escoffier identified the five mother sauces, forever associating them with French cuisine. However, mother sauces are relevant in all modern cooking practices.

Read on to learn how to make each one. In the 19th century, Marie-Antoine Carême anointed Béchamel, Velouté, Espagnole, and tomato sauce as the building blocks for all other sauces in his work L'Art de la Cuisine Française au Dix-Neuvième Siecle. Later on, Hollandaise got added to the family.

Accordingly, the five French mother sauces — velouté, béchamel, hollandaise, espagnole and tomato — are an extremely important part of a culinary curriculum, as they are a starting point for many more complex sauces and preparations.

The five French mother sauces are béchamel, velouté, espagnole, hollandaise, and tomato. Developed in the 19th century by French chef Auguste Escoffier, mother sauces serve as a starting point for a variety of delicious sauces used to complement countless dishes, including veggies, fish, meat, casseroles, and pastas.

To the original four sauces (Velouté, Béchamel, Allemande, and Espagnole) enshrined by his predecessor, royal chef Marie-Antoine Carême a century earlier, Escoffier added Hollandaise and Sauce Tomate, and reclassified Allemande. (Mayonnaise, one of his essential cold sauces, is now considered the sixth mother.)

sauce = sear + deglaze + cook (strain) + reduce + enrich

Sear your protein to create deep flavor, deglaze the bits of flavor stuck to the pan, cook the sauce sufficiently, reduce the sauce to intensify flavor, and enrich it to achieve that velvety finish.

Sauces considered mother sauces. In order (left to right, top to bottom): béchamel, espagnole, tomato, velouté, hollandaise, and mayonnaise.

There are three basic kinds of ingredients in most sauces: a liquid, a thickening agent, and other flavoring and seasonings. The quality of the liquid base determines the quality of the sauce.

Which chef classified the 5 mother sauces? ›

Mother sauces, first classified by French Chef Marie-Antoine Carême and later codified by Auguste Escoffier, are the starting points for countless 'daughter' sauces in French cuisine.

There are three sauces we make VERY frequently when catering and running events: Veloute, Bechamel, and Hollandaise. All culinary students must become very comfortable with these three mother sauces.

Famous chef Marie-Antoine Carême codified the four original Mother Sauces in the early 1800s. His recipes for Velouté, Béchamel, Allemande, and Espagnole were vital to every French chef. About 100 years later, chef Auguste Escoffier reclassified Allemande as a “daughter sauce,” or variation, of velouté.

Sauces considered mother sauces. In order (left to right, top to bottom): béchamel, espagnole, tomato, velouté, hollandaise, and mayonnaise.