5 Famed French Sauces Every Home Cook Should Learn How to Make

They're in every classic French cookbook from Larousse to Julia Child and are often mentioned on the menus of high-end restaurants, but how much do you know about the five French mother sauces? What are these essentials of French cuisine, and how did they come to be so important? We turned to an executive chef to learn how each of the five mother sauces is made and how we can use them when cooking at home.

What Are the Five Mother Sauces?

"The five mother sauces are the foundation sauces from which other sauces are derived. They are the starting point for many classic sauces," says Jerrod Zifchak, executive chef of Café Boulud in New York City. They were named by Auguste Escoffier, the famed chef who modernized classic French techniques and recipes in the early 1900s.

They include velouté (blonde sauce), béchamel (white sauce), tomato (red sauce), hollandaise (butter sauce), and espagnole (brown sauce).

Velouté

Velouté may sound like an intimidating sauce, but, surprisingly, it's the simplest of the five mother sauces to make (it's also considered to be the first mother sauce).

In French cuisine, velouté is a key component in Coq au Vin Blanc. According to Zifchak, only three ingredients are needed for this light, delicate white sauce-white stock (veal, chicken, or fish), butter, and flour.

"Melt the butter and flour to form a roux. Slowly pour the hot stock into the roux and whisk until smooth," says Zifchak. Voila! From here, it can be used as the base for gravy, soup such as our test kitchen's favorite chicken and dumplings, or as a simple sauce atop poultry and white fish.

Béchamel

"Béchamel was originally known as Salsa Cola or Colleta, meaning 'glue sauce,' due to its thick and sticky consistency," says Zifchak. The creamy sauce is made with butter, flour, hot milk, white pepper, and salt and is the base for comfort food dishes like macaroni and cheese and classic potato gratin.

In addition to riffs on gratin, like our asparagus and potato version, béchamel is also a key ingredient in another French classic: a croque madame sandwich (which we Americans know as a ham and cheese sandwich). Make your own béchamel, then try it in a turkey-pastrami croque-madame casserole.

Tomato

Classic tomato sauce is probably the most well-known of the five mother sauces. Traditional French tomato sauce is made with canned whole peeled tomatoes, onion, garlic, olive oil, salt, and a bay leaf.

Italian marinara may sub the bay leaf for basil, though every Italian grandmother has her own version of a proper marinara sauce to serve with grilled-eggplant parmesan or creamy baked ziti. From pasta to North African shakshuka, tomato sauce is an everyday culinary staple. It's even a standard side served with kid-friendly mozzarella sticks.

Hollandaise

It may be best known as part of the brunch classic eggs benedict, but hollandaise—a traditional butter sauce made with egg yolks, clarified butter, lemon juice, water, salt, and white pepper—shines when paired with more than just eggs.

"This sauce adds richness and acidity to elevate simple ingredients such as asparagus and eggs," says Zifchak. You can serve it as a delicious, rich side sauce for a simple dish like skillet-poached salmon. What's more, hollandaise is also the basis of béarnaise sauce, a classic steakhouse sauce that also includes tarragon, shallots, and vinegar; mousseline (whipped cream), and Maltaise, which is a blood orange-infused hollandaise.

Espagnole

"Although this translates into the French word for 'Spanish,' it is uncertain as to why this name was chosen. Many people believe that the Spanish cooks at Louis XIII's wedding improved the original French brown sauce with Spanish tomatoes," says Zifchak.

Espagnole is a brown sauce that is traditionally made with veal stock, mirepoix, garlic, butter, flour, tomato paste, and herbs. The key to this sauce is simmering it for about two hours to develop flavor and achieve the desired consistency.

It's the base of two classic sauces that are often paired with red meat-demi-glace, a brown sauce made with espagnole and veal stock, and bordelaise, which has a base of demi-glace and red wine. These traditional French sauces are popular in bistros and steakhouses and are served with dishes such as beef bourguignon and cassoulet.