Recipes for Sauces & Marinades

A roux, pronounced “roo,” is one of the building blocks of cooking. It’s a fundamental technique for new cooks to learn, and one of the first things taught in culinary school. It’s the secret to making silky sauces, rich gravies, and luscious mac and cheese. In fact, if you’ve ever made a homemade cheese sauce before, chances are you’ve made a roux — even if you didn’t realize it.

Editor’s Note: If you’ve cooked this beloved recipe before, it might look a little different these days! We recently improved it to make it even easier to follow and more delicious.From here on out, creamy chicken soup from the slow cooker shall be known as change-your-life chicken soup. Try to imagine all the goodness of chicken soup — moist, tender chicken, bites of sweet carrot and peas — but wrapped in a creamy broth flecked with black pepper.

Sweet and tangy.

It’s a sauce! It’s a dip! It’s a dressing!

The secret’s in the sauce.

Plus, two ingredients not normally found in chili.

It’s that good!

In a matter of minutes, you can whip up white gravy in a saucepan for the perfect creamy, savory topping for your favorite dishes. This basic sauce is prepared with ingredients you likely already have on hand: butter, flour, milk, salt, and pepper. For a bit of heat, a pinch of cayenne can be added as well. I suggest trying your first batch spooned over a homemade buttermilk biscuit. The creamy gravy pairs perfectly with the warm, fluffy layers. It’s a Southern classic.

It’s so delicious.

Gremolata is one of those things where the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. Sprinkled over any number of dishes, it will make every mouthful pop with its bright, fresh flavors. Along with classic basil pesto and chimichurri sauce, it’s one of the essential condiments made with fresh herbs that you can add to practically anything grilled or roasted. Plus it’s a great way to use up a bunch of parsley!

Creamy, peppery perfection.

If you love heat, this one’s for you.

Just 7 ingredients come together for big flavor.

It’s no secret that McDonald’s Big Macs are beloved all over the world, primarily for the sweet and tangy sauce that’s slathered onto the burger buns. And while there have been plenty of rumors suggesting the special sauce is simply Thousand Island dressing in disguise, McDonald’s says otherwise.

It’s so versatile.

A good hollandaise sauce, whether it’s over eggs Benedict on Saturday morning or steamed asparagus for dinner, truly levels up anything on your plate. Maybe you didn’t know that this creamy, buttery, slightly tangy sauce that you love so dearly could be made at home in about two minutes using just a blender. Want to impress your friends this weekend? Invite them for Sunday brunch or a steak dinner and tell them you’re making hollandaise sauce.

Breakfast just got its own special sauce.

It’s a five-star recipe.

My first restaurant job was at a little lunch cafe famous for its giant cookies, towering hummus sandwiches, and cold peanut noodles. This husband-and-wife-run neighborhood joint was regularly filled with young professionals slurping cold, spicy soba noodles from plastic clamshell containers. While the owners were always generous with recipes — they gave me their cookie recipes when I left that job — they would not share the secrets to their peanut sauce.

In the past, I’ve reserved lamb for special occasions. While roasted leg of lamb is absolutely worthy of such, pan-seared lamb chops, lamb burgers, or lamb meatballs deserve to be everyday affairs. They are just as easy to cook as pork, chicken, or beef, but come with a rich and savory flavor that can’t be beat.While lamb is great on its own, it’s even better served with a sauce — be it creamy or herby.

Peppercorn sauce is a creamy, spicy, and lightly smoky pan sauce made from beef stock, peppercorns, shallots, brandy, and cream. Originating from the French dish steak au poivre, it’s traditionally created from the fond (the brown bits and residue) left behind from the seared steaks, which are packed with flavor. Peppercorn sauce is a delicious accompaniment to a variety of proteins and vegetables — not just steak. To make it more versatile, this recipe doesn’t rely on fond.

This is the ultimate pasta dish.

It's unreal with eggs.

After I scraped my bowl clean, I immediately wanted more.

Tastes like a ticket to Paris.

Your kitchen will feel like a fancy restaurant.

It tastes even better than the real thing.

Make now, eat later.

Sauces are the magic touch that makes vegetables more satisfying, and grains even more exciting. Here are 16 easy sauces to learn, memorize, and enjoy.

Besides spaghetti because, duh.

It's liquid gold, y'all.

It does what the can can’t.

Take a plate of greens from blah to ooh-la-la.

A zesty, vibrant herb-packed sauce for everything from meat to potatoes.

The perfect sauce does exist.

Plus, you'll have enough leftovers for days.

Ready in minutes.

Freeze it now, enjoy great lasagna later.

A simple sauce is the best thing you can do for your meal.

A pan sauce feels like something you read on a menu, doesn’t it? A bit of fancy chef magic that should only be attempted by trained professionals. But here’s the real secret: pan sauces are so incredibly simple. And fast. In the time it takes your steak or pork chop to rest, you can turn those pan drippings into a fantastic sauce, no culinary school degree required. Liquid, in a combination of wine or stock, is used to deglaze the pan and a little butter is added to make things rich.

Poppy seed dressing has a balance of sweet and tangy that I find completely irresistible. The ingredients are easy-to-find; you need white wine vinegar, sugar, and some finely shredded shallot or onion. It’s great on a spinach and strawberry salad, makes a fun spin in a coleslaw, and also does wonders as a marinade for chicken. It’s the jack-of-all-trades of the salad dressing world. This dressing is also surprisingly easy to make yourself.

There is a particular bottled salsa on every table in Costa Rica. It’s called Lizano and the first time you taste it you have to stop and think a minute. Do I like it or not?

Sweet, salty, and sour, and perfect with everything you're grilling this summer.

They're all packed with flavor.

They're easy enough to shake up on a weeknight and go with any kind of salad.

Sausage gravy is one of those dishes that is so basic, you don’t even need a recipe. But it’s also one of those dishes that, in the age of everything being bigger, bolder, and more unique, tends to get lost in the mix. But let’s not let that happen! In this recipe, you only need only a few ingredients – pork sausage, flour, milk, salt, pepper, and hot biscuits – to make Southern sausage gravy.

It steals the scene at every party.

You only need two ingredients.

The better way to compound butter.

This rich, creamy pasta sauce was the result of an experiment. We wanted to make a creamy, mushroom-y pasta topping with no cream. We’re trying to watch our diet a little better, and while we were eating pasta there was no need to indulge in cream, right? Instead, the bulk of this sauce is white wine, broth, and mushrooms. We don’t use a lot of wild mushrooms – they are expensive, and just a few will do here to give flavor. The result?

It’s so stable, you can even refrigerate it and reheat it in the microwave.

It doubles as a marinade.

Don’t even think about whipping up a batch without it.