Learn to make beautiful sauces and dressings with three culinary fundamentals: emulsifying vinaigrette, béchamel, and pan sauce.
In every great dish, from steaks and chops to salads and grilled veggies, sauces play a key role. If you’ve ever wondered how restaurants turn basic grilled chicken into a culinary masterpiece, the answer is likely in the sauce.
Here, we explain three sauce fundamentals—emulsifying vinaigrette, bechamel, and pan sauce—and share tips and tricks for incorporating them into your favorite meals.
It’s an age-old cooking quandary: How can I prevent my vinaigrette from separating and ensure a silky-smooth dressing when served? The answer is simpler than you might think.
At its most basic level, a vinaigrette is made from four things: flavorings, an emulsifier, oil, and vinegar. (The latter in a 3-to-1 ratio in order to maintain the vinaigrette’s body and ensure it’s neither too acidic nor too sour.)
However, the real secret sauce—pun intended—is the emulsifying ingredient, which acts as a kind of glue, balancing the oil and vinegar and keeping them together so that every bite of your salad has equal parts richness and acidity.
An aside for science-y folks. The reason the two separate is because vinegar is nearly 95 percent water, and as we all learned in middle school chemistry class, water and oil do not mix. A surfactant—something to attract and bind water and oil molecules—is needed, which is what an emulsifier is.
Among the most common emulsifiers are:
Once you’ve chosen your emulsifier, building a balanced vinaigrette requires just three steps.
Et voila! A fresh vinaigrette that won’t separate. You can use it immediately or refrigerate for up to five days.
Béchamel sauce is what’s known as a “mother sauce,” so named because as one of five essential sauces in French cooking, it provides the foundation for creating numerous other sauces. In its simplest form, béchamel is made with just three ingredients—butter, flour, and milk—plus a dash of seasoning.
Four steps are required for a basic béchamel sauce.
For an uber quick, uber simple sauce, look no further than your basic pan sauce, which can be made in the time it takes your protein to rest. Pan sauce ensures that none of the crunchy, caramelized bits of rendered fat and pan drippings from your seared meat is wasted, and it makes that same meat even more flavorful.
Making pan sauce is easy as 1-2-3 (and a fast 4-5-6).
Drizzle pan sauce over steaks, pork chops, chicken, and other proteins, as well as seared veggies, tofu, and any other pan-cooked foods… and enjoy!
Photo credit: Victor Monthay