This quick article will help you unearth the secrets behind the five mother sauces of classical French cuisine, from the delicate hollandaise to the indulgent espagnole, from which the myriad sauces we know of today were derived.
Classic French cuisine has influenced chefs and food enthusiasts worldwide and still inspires the way we cook because of its culinary traditions.
Among so many recipes, preparation methods, and ingredients, the sauce, as long as it is prepared correctly, can raise the quality of any dish, providing texture, flavor, color, complexity, and balance.
In culinary, there is a term called “mother sauce.” It refers to any fundamental sauce as a starting point for making other types of secondary or derivative sauces. It also represents a family giving rise to another subfamily.
This classification was developed and popularized by two French chefs, Carême and Escoffier, who divided all sauces into five mother sauces: béchamel, hollandaise, tomato, Espagnole, and velouté.
These five categories transformed the foundation of French sauces, making France essential and dominant in western cuisines.
Any sauce whatsoever should be smooth, light (without being liquid), glossy to the eye, and decided in taste. When these conditions are fulfilled, it is always easy to digest, even for tired stomachs.
-Auguste Escoffier – French chef, restaurateur and writer
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Jump To Section
- Five Mother Sauces: The origin
- The Structure Of A Sauce
- Five Mother Sauces: Béchamel, Hollandaise, Tomato Sauce, Velouté and Espagnole
Five Mother Sauces: The Origin
Before the 19th century, France’s most famous cuisine was prepared for the wealthy classes only by renowned chefs. After the French Revolution (1789-1799), these talented chefs were out of work.
As an option to survive, they moved from private cooks to restaurant owners. Consequently, a clear break occurred between old-style cooking – cuisine à l’ancienne, and contemporary cooking of that time, today called classic cuisine.
It was also during this period that renowned figures in french cuisine emerged. Among them was Marie-Antoine Carême (1784 – 1833), a French chef is known for simplifying and codifying haute cuisine. Famous as the “chef of kings,” he is commonly remembered as the first celebrity chef.
Carême was responsible for organizing French sauces in the early 19th century into four categories known as Grand Sauces:
- Béchamel
- Velouté
- Espagnole
- Allemande
Later, as early as the beginning of the 20th century, another important figure in French cuisine, Georges-Auguste Escoffier (1846 – 1935), a chef, restaurateur, and writer, refined the list of Carême sauces and demoted the Allemande sauce to a variation of velouté. In addition, he added tomato and hollandaise sauces to the group of five mother sauces.
Thus, the list of Escoffier’s five mother sauces, which continues to this day, is as follows:
In his first cookbook, published in 1903, Le Guide Culinaire, Escoffier describes hundreds of other derivatives of the mother sauces, which would modernize cuisine, would make his career prosper, and transform him into an icon of French and world cuisine.
The Structure OF A Sauce
A well-prepared sauce is the “top” of the recipe, sometimes functioning as the protagonist of the dish, adding moisture, flavor, richness, appearance, interest, and appeal to the appetite.
In addition, sauces must balance flavor, be brightly colored, and match the other ingredients in the dish in structure, temperature, and quantity.
Therefore, there are some essential ingredients that we need to understand their use in each recipe before preparing any sauce.
They are liquids, aromatics, and thickening agents.
Liquid
The liquid is the sauce’s base and body. Other ingredients are added to give the sauce color, flavor, and structure. The cooking time for each type of liquid can vary from a few minutes to a few hours, being an essential factor in determining the final characteristics of each sauce.
- White stock: Its preparation uses pieces of meat and bones from chicken, veal, or fish bones. Its light color incorporates color, flavors, and aromas for velouté and tomato sauces.
- Brown stock: It is made with pieces of meat and bones from chicken or veal. Its brown color is for sauces with a dark base, such as Espagnole.
- Milk: The texture, color, and flavor of milk are the basis for the preparation of Béchamel sauce.
- Clarified butter: Is incorporated into the yolks to prepare hollandaise sauce, adding flavor and silky texture.
Aromatics
Aromatics, such as mirepoix and bouquet garni, are herbs, spices, and vegetables that enrich the flavors of sauces.
Mirepoix
Mirepoix is a mixture of vegetables – carrots, onions, and celery cut into cubes and added to broths or sauces to add flavor and color.
The amount of mirepoix varies according to the need for each recipe. The ratio of each vegetable is 2:1:1, that is, two parts onion, one part carrot, and one part celery. This proportion is balanced so that the flavor of the three elements does not overpower each other.
Bouquet garni
Bouquet garni is a bundle of herbs, such as parsley stems, fresh thyme, bay leaf, and celery stalk, wrapped in the leek green part and tied with cooking string.
Sometimes we find a different variation with celery stalk and black peppercorns. Bouquet garni adds a mild aromatic herb flavor to sauces, soups, roasts, broths, and stews.
Thickening Agents
A sauce should be thick enough to come together and lightly coat the main ingredient. Otherwise, it will simply run into a puddle at the bottom plate. However, that doesn’t mean it has to be heavy, lumpy, or pasty.
In traditional French cooking, a sauce’s consistency is achieved by adding thickeners that increase the viscosity of a liquid.
These thickening agents correspond to the type of sauce that will be thickened. The most used are roux, beurre manié, blood, cream, egg yolk, or starch.
Roux
Roux is a cooked mixture of equal parts flour and fat, usually butter. Basically, 120g of roux, 60g of flour, and 60g of fat are enough to thicken a liter of liquid, giving the recipes a toasted flavor and a silky smooth texture.
There are four types of roux:
- Blanc: Used to thicken Béchamel and white sauces. Cooking time: 2 to 3 minutes.
- Blond: Used for Veloutés and creamy sauces. Cooking time: 3 to 5 minutes.
- Brown: Used to enrich the taste and color of Demi-glace, Espagnole, or other brown sauces. Cooking time: about 10 minutes.
- Dark-brown: Present in Cajun and Creole recipes that require more pronounced flavor and dark brown color. Preparation time: 20 minutes.
Basically, 120g of roux (60g of flour and 60g of fat) is enough to thicken a liter of liquid.
Beurre Manié
It is a mixture of equal parts in weight of flour and soft butter to thicken sauces with shorter cooking times, such as fish and seafood sauces. Allow the sauce to cook for a few minutes after incorporating the beurre manié until the raw flour cooks.
Blood
Incorporate blood in sauces that go along with game dishes. To prevent blood clotting, add some acidic agents, such as vinegar, lemon juice, or brandy.
Cream
It provides extra richness and color, giving an opaque appearance to the sauce. For further consistency and flavor, reduce the cream before mix-in.
Egg yolk
Egg yolks provide richness, flavor, and smooth texture, especially for blond sauces, like Hollandaise and Béarnaise. Be careful in controlling the temperature, and do not go over 149ºF/65ºC because the yolk will coagulate from there.
Starch
It refers to arrowroot, corn, potato, and rice flours mixed with cold water, called slurry. Cornstarch is commonly used nowadays due to its low cost.
Five Mother Sauces : Béchamel, Hollandaise, Tomato, Velouté and Espagnole
The term “Mother Sauces” was first used by Antonin Carême, which was later refined by Escoffier. Until today, they are primary sauces that serve as the basis for other sauces called derivatives.
The five mother sauces, Béchamel, Velouté, Espagnole, Hollandaise, and Sauce Tomate or Tomato Sauce, are the results of mixing liquids, aromatics, seasoning, and thickening agents.
Béchamel Sauce
Béchamel, also known as white sauce, is a versatile sauce that serves as a base for various other sauces, enriching more delicate dishes.
Today’s béchamel sauce is a modern version of the original recipe, which used thin veal pieces, while the current one uses only milk, aromatics, and white roux.
The main sauces derived from Béchamel are Aurora, Bohémienne, Cardinal, Crème, Lobster, Mornay, Nantua, and Soubise.
Hollandaise Sauce
Hollandaise sauce is one of the five mother sauces as set out by Escoffier in the 18th century.
It is a hot, emulsified sauce with egg yolks, black ground pepper, lemon juice, and clarified butter. Furthermore, it is delicate, pale yellow in color, with a smooth and creamy texture. Finally, it is ideal to go along with fish and vegetables and be the base for many other sauces.
The main sauces derived from Hollandaise are Béarnaise, Bavaroise, Choron, Foyot, Maltaise, Mousseline, Paloise, and Royal.
Tomato Sauce
Tomato Sauce or Sauce Tomate in French is a common term to classify any sauce whose main base is tomatoes. It is present in world cuisine, from simple and fresh seasoning to complex ingredients.
As part of the five mother sauces list of French cuisine, Tomato Sauce has pork fat, aromatics, white veal stock, and roux as ingredients. It requires about 2 hours in the oven, while traditional Italian tomato sauce can be ready between 30 min to 1 hour, only with olive oil, vegetables, and tomatoes.
A well-made tomato sauce is a foundation for many delicate and homemade dishes such as pasta, pizza, beef, chicken, seafood, and fish.
The main sauces derived from a basic tomato sauce are Arrabiata, Bolognese, Pomodoro, Amatriciana, Puttanesca, Marinara, Bolognese, Portuguese, Creole, and Spanish.
Velouté Sauce
Velouté is a white stock using blond roux as a thickening agent that translates into a velvety, silky, or smooth sauce.
While the most common velouté uses chicken stock as a base, you can make it with fish or veal stock, depending on the final dish’s protein.
Velouté is also a base of soups to serve over steaks or as a main ingredient in preparing its derivative sauces.
The main sauces derived from Velouté are Suprême, Allemande, Albufera, Aurore, and Normande.
Espagnole Sauce
Espagnole is a brown sauce that originated in Spain. It was later popularized in France and became one of the five French mother sauces we still use today.
It serves as a starting point for rich sauces, such as Demi-glace, and often goes along with red meat.
Despite being one of Carême’s original mother sauces, its use is not as regular in most modern kitchens due to the cost of the ingredients, labor, and length of preparation, making it, in a way, an expensive sauce for small and medium-sized restaurants.
The main sauces derived from Espagnole are Bourguignonne, Bordelaise, Charcutière, Madeira, Demi-glace, Chasseur, and Bigarade.
Bottom Line
A sauce enhances the dish’s flavor and pairs with the wine, but it cannot overpower or hide the food’s taste.
There must be a balance between the ingredients to feel their smooth flavors and silky texture in each bite. Its consistency should promote the union with the main ingredient and not run to the bottom of the dish.
Preparing sauces is one of the biggest challenges in the kitchen. It requires a thorough understanding of cooking and an appreciation for those who have studied, tested, and put into practice centuries of gastronomic experiments.
Today, the five mother sauces and their derivative sauces, classified by Carême and Escoffier, are still taught in cooking schools and prepared in restaurants and kitchens worldwide.
Just like French chefs of the past, put culinary techniques into practice and come to understand the role and reactions of each ingredient during its preparation.
Between mistakes and successes, you will naturally push your limits in the kitchen and master the art of preparing the most popular sauces in gastronomy, the five mother sauces.
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