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The reason why it’s called that is because each of them has its own “kids”, if I may put it that way. If we take Béchamel, one of the mother sauces, from this basic sauce there are a few other secondary sauces that can be made including Mornay, Soubise, Cheddar Cheese, Cream, Nantua, Cheesy and Mustard. The same applies to the other “moms”; Hollandaise, Espagnole, Velouté and Classic Tomato.
In the past I’ve posted my Basic Brown Sauce recipe. It’s great as is but by adding one extra ingredient, this sauce turns into an Espagnole which, as mentioned above, is one of the 5 Mother Sauces. The added ingredient is tomato purée… that’s all! Now on the other hand, making a “traditional” Espagnole Sauce is more complex than my Basic Brown Sauce. After cooking the mirepoix (combination of onions, carrots and celery), then adding the tomato purée, there’s that beef stock, aka called “brown stock” made from bones that have been roasted first, that is poured into the mixture… As you can see, it’s time consuming and for us, every day cooks, we can find an easier way with almost the same results.
Without making everything from scratch, there’s still hope to make a nice decent Espagnole sauce by cutting corners. Buy a good quality store-bought beef broth with low-sodium or even unsalted. The reason behind this is while the sauce is reducing (first when making the Espagnole and then the Demi-Glace), the salt will intensify in the process making it extremely salty. The other option is to buy a demi-glace base or concentrate. Either way, you can still have a beautiful sauce for your recipe.
Fine, now that my basic brown sauce turned into a shortcut version of an Espagnole sauce, let’s make a secondary one… Demi-Glace! Why go through all that trouble to make a sauce? It’s because it’s worth it!
Demi-Glace is a rich dark sauce that is a mixture of half Espagnole and half brown stock reduced by half which is what the word “demi” means in French while glace means “ice”. This sauce is very concentrated and is a delicious base for other sauces like a nice red wine (Marchand de Vin) or Mushroom sauce over grilled meat such as steaks. I like to use Demi-Glace for my Steak Diane recipe which is coming in November 2020. It’s also great to add to stews and soups.
There’s a long list of recipes where you can use Demi-Glace. It’s obviously a perfect match when it comes to grilled meats or roasts. Making this secondary sauce will bring your dish to restaurant quality. Eventually, I’ll be posting the “long version” of it but in the interim, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this shortcut.
Bon Appétit!
Check out these incredible sauce recipes…
– Homemade Tzatziki Sauce
– Smoky Buffalo Wing Sauce
– Iguana’s Mushroom Sauce
– Seafood Cocktail Sauce
– Bolognese Sauce
– Triple Chili Wing Sauce
an for even more sauce and marinade recipes, click on this link… Recipe Category • Sauces & Marinades
For ingredient amounts and more info, visit
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