InFrench cuisine, the mother sauces (French: sauces mères), also known as grandes sauces in French, are a group of sauces upon which many other sauces – "daughter sauces" or petites sauces – are based.[1][2] Different classifications of mother sauces have been proposed since at least the early 19th century.[3]
In 1833, Marie-Antoine Carême described 4 grandes (great) sauces, potentially the earliest printed reference to mother sauces.[3] In 1844, the French magazine Revue de Paris reported:
Oui ne savez-vous pas que la grande espagnole est une sauce-mère, dont toutes les autres préparations, telles que réductions, fonds de cuisson, jus, veloutés, essences, coulis, ne sont, à proprement parler, que des dérivés?
Don’t you know that the grand sauce Espagnole is a mother sauce, of which all the other preparations, such as reductions, stocks, jus, veloutés, essences, and coulis, are, strictly speaking, only derivatives?
— Les Fantaisies du Rocher de Cancale[4]
Different classifications of mother and daughter sauces have been proposed by different chefs, varying in number and selection.
| Sauce | Carême | Gouffé | Escoffier | Montagné | Common list | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1833[5] | 1867 | 1903 | Heinemann | 1907 | 1912 | 1938 | (current) | |
| Allemande |  |
[6] |
[7] |
?[8] | [9] |
[10] |
 [11] |
|
| Béchamel | |
[12] |
[13] |
[14] |
[15] |
[16] |
[11] |
|
| Demi-glace | |
|
[17] |
[18] |
[19] |
[20] |
[21] |
|
| Espagnole | |
[22] |
[23] |
[24] |
[25] |
[26] |
[21] |
|
| Hollandaise sauce | |
|
|
[27] |
[28] |
[29] |
[30] |
|
| Jus de veau lié | |
|
[17] |
[31] |
[19] |
[20] |
[32] |
|
| Poivrade | |
[33] |
|
[34] |
[35] |
[36] |
[37] |
|
| Marinade | |
[38] |
|
[39] |
[40] |
[41] |
[42] |
|
| Mayonnaise | |
|
[43] |
[44] |
[45] |
[46] |
[47] |
|
| Mirepoix | |
|
[23] |
[48] |
[25] |
?[26] | [49] |
|
| Suprême | |
|
[7] |
[50] |
[9] |
[16] |
[11] |
|
| Tomato | |
|
[13] |
[27] |
[15] |
[51] |
[11] |
|
| Velouté | |
[52] |
[17] |
[53] |
[19] |
[10] |
[11] |
|
In 1833, Marie-Antoine Carême published a classification of French sauces in his reference cookbook L’art de la cuisine française au XIXe siècle ("The Art of French Cuisine in the 19th Century"). Instead of mother sauces, he called them Grandes et Petites sauces ("great and small sauces").[3]
In this cookbook, Carême defined a sauce classification and listed four grandes sauces:
Carême classified numerous sauces as petites sauces.[3]
In 1867, the French chef and pâtissier Jules Gouffé published Le livre de cuisine comprenant la grande cuisine et la cuisine de ménage (The Cookbook Including Grand And Domestic Cooking).[54]
In this book, Gouffé listed twelve mother sauces. (He used both the terms grandes sauces and sauce mères).
The pioneering chef Auguste Escoffier is credited with establishing the importance of Espagnole, Velouté, Béchamel and Tomate, as well as Hollandaise and Mayonnaise.[55][56] His book Le guide culinaire was published in 1903. It lists numerous "Grandes Sauces de base", including espagnole, velouté, béchamel, and tomate as well as more unusual sauces such as mirepoix and jus de veau lié (thickened veal stock).[57]
The original French editions of Le guide culinaire listed Hollandaise as a daughter sauce rather than a grande sauce.[29] Mayonnaise, placed in the chapter on cold sauces, was described in a paragraph as a mother sauce for cold sauces, and compared to Espagnole and Velouté.[46]
The 1907 English edition of Le guide culinaire by William Heinemann, A Guide to Modern Cookery, listed significantly fewer "basic sauces", including Hollandaise alongside espagnole, "half glaze" (demi glace), velouté, allemande, béchamel, and tomate.[58] The English edition did not describe mayonnaise as a mother sauce.[59] Heinemann also added the assertion that "Allemande Sauce is not, strictly speaking, a basic sauce".[14]
The most common list of mother sauces in current use is:[60][55][61][62]
Although sometimes attributed to chefs Marie-Antoine Carême or Auguste Escoffier, their lists differed from this.[5][51]
Béchamel is a milk-based sauce, thickened with a white roux and typically flavoured with onion, nutmeg, or thyme.[63]
Espagnole is a strong-flavoured brown sauce, made from a dark brown roux and brown stock—usually beef or veal stock—and tomatoes or tomato paste.[63]
Velouté is light in colour, made by reducing clear stock (made from un-roasted bones), usually veal, chicken or fish stock, thickened with a white or blond roux. Velouté is the French word for "velvety".[64]
The sauce tomate described by Escoffier is a tomato sauce made with fatty salted pork breast, a mirepoix of carrots, onions and thyme, and white stock.[65]
Hollandaise is a warm emulsion based on egg yolk and clarified butter, flavoured with lemon juice or vinegar.[66]
