Mastering these 5 mother sauces is the ultimate power move for any aspiring chef or home cook. From béchamel to hollandaise, these classic sauces, originally defined by legendary chef Auguste Escoffier, form the foundation of French cuisine and countless dishes worldwide.
Will breaks down the secrets behind each sauce, teaching you step-by-step how to create them like a pro. Whether you’re looking to perfect your béchamel for creamy pasta, elevate your steak with espagnole, or whip up the perfect hollandaise for brunch, this guide will take your cooking to the next level.
VIDEO CHAPTERS
00:00 – What are Mother Sauces?
00:49 – Bechamel
03:06 – Soubise
04:10 – Veloute
05:36 – Herb Veloute
07:39 – Espagnole
10:50 – A L’Orange
12:21 – Hollandaise
14:35 – Bearnaise
15:31 – Tomat
17:49 – Romesco
30 Comments
In America cusine, I think you have a different set of sauces, coming from a variety of different cultures.
From the French Five you still have Tomato and Bechamel. Tomato of course being common in Italian with Mariana or Bolegnese, but also Americanized into Ketchup and most Barbaque sauces. Bechamel bring the other sauce used major sauce for Italian food with Alfredo.
Then from latin America you of course have a chili sauce, with this being the base of Salsa, Hot Sauces, Buffalo Sauce, Sriracha, Mole, etc. Basically your spicy sauces.
From Asia you have Soy Sauce which has infused itself into practically all East Asian sauces including Teriyaki.
Then you have your basic Cheese sauce, which spins off into Queso, Pimento Cheese, and Cheese Whiz.
Finally you have not a single mother sauce but kind of a family of BBQ sauces, deriving from different bases, you have some derived from Mustards, Mayo, Molasses, Worcestershire, Vinager, Horseradish, or Orange Juice.
What’s the name of the butter he keeps mentioning???
THANK YOU AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!
I love how at 7:53 he's showing us how he's attacking the mire poix, as he's cutting up the celery along with the rubber bands he left on his cutting board. Adds a whole new texture!
You obviously never heard of ketchup
That steak was beautiful. 😊
if you're studding an onion with cloves why are there exposed parts? why not turn the onions upside down or just don't stud the parts that won't be in the milk? I know it is a nitpick but it seems pointless to waste cloves in the manner where half of them do absolutely nothing
why do we keep scratching the pans? dont we have a wooden spoon? just saying
Dishing out some first class videos! 🤪✌😎
What is your opinion of the idea that the 5 french mother sauces might be partially mistranslated and instead of Sauce Hollandaise; the mother sauce should be Sauce Mayonnaise?
as my father used to say " la sauce est tout" or The Sauce is everything 😊
but when having a drink he would also say "voici de la boue dans ta botte" or here's mud in your boot
Stop beating the edge of the pot with the spoon your killing the seal
The G in Espagnol is silent, by the way. The GN letter combination in French works like Ñ in Spanish, so it‘s pronounced Es-pan-yol. Otherwise a really great, informative video. 👍🏻
The "Trinity"from Creole/Cajun cuisine is another one😊⚜️⚜️
Hey chef I made the herb veloute, it was incredible, and I had some really good Dijon mustard and truffle mustard I got from France, it turned out great but the sauce did have a faint amount of that “green” taste…did I use too much parsley stem or is it supposed to have that green herb taste? The chicken breast was your recipe and I did deglaze the pan and add that to the blender….Thanks
Let’s say I want to cut down fat on hollandaise, can I replace most of butter with stock after the egg yolk mixture? Will it taste good?
What knife is that?
thank you sensei
This is very informative, but is very lacking in presentation making it interesting x.x
Really good video mate. I left school at 15 to become a Chef in Italian Restaurants
The Chef told me "KEEP IT SIMPLE DO IT WELL'
Just like you showed it there Brother
Great Video! Quick question, what type of vinegar are you adding?
Great video! I only have a small thing to specify.
Hollandaise isn’t called a mother sauce in the original French edition of Escoffier’s book, and it appears that its classification as such comes from a translation error in the English editions.
Mayonnaise, on the other hand, is called a Mother Sauce by Escoffier 🙂
Source: went to check on the scan of the original book at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
But this is very Eurocentric
Chef of 25 years and I always just love watching people teach the mother sauces
I barely like videos but this one deserved it, not only the technique but the explanation of why u do certain things like blanching the spinach to release chlorophyll last time I heard chlorophyll was in high school biology
You got a subscriber to an aspiring home chef. Thank you sir for being knowledgeable, humble, and easy to follow.
Incredible video – so much useful info info in 20 minutes. I made a cress and dill velouté the other day with some salmon after watching this – glorious. Just one thing – the 'g' in espagnole is silent – its pronounced like 'espanole' in French 😉
Just buy Larousse Gastronomique
Overrated shit lol . China and indian and middle eastern food are more better
You use a blender a lot, how did they do it before the blender?