Learn How to Make Espagnole Sauce, One of the 5 Mother Sauces (2024)

Cooking School

Danilo Alfaro

Danilo Alfaro has published more than 800 recipes and tutorials focused on making complicated culinary techniques approachable to home cooks.

Learn about The Spruce Eats'Editorial Process

Updated on 03/5/24

Tested byMary Jo Romano

(265)

Write a Review

Cook: 60 mins

Total: 75 mins

Servings: 8

Yield: 2 cups

265 ratings

Write a Review

Add a comment

Espagnole (pronounced like the word for Spanish: español) is a basic brown sauce that is one of the five mother sauces of classical cuisine. It's also the starting point for a rich and deeply flavorful sauce calleddemi-glace, which is traditionally served with red meats.

Making espagnole sauce is not too different from making velouté—they're both essentially stock-based sauces thickened with roux. Where they differ is that espagnole is made with brown stock (i.e. beef stock), and it includes additional ingredients such as tomato purée (which adds color and acidity) and mirepoix, which is a fancy name for chopped up carrots, celery, and onions. These add a tremendous amount of flavor and aroma to the sauce.

You'll also see that the recipe calls for a sachet, which is simply a few herbs and spices bundled up in cheesecloth and tied with a long piece of cooking twine to make it easy to fish it out after cooking.

What You'll Need to Make This Espagnole Recipe

A Great Saucepan

A Sharp Chef's Knife

A Handy Dandy Whisk

“Having a basic brown sauce in the refrigerator or freezer is the gateway to many miraculous dishes and sauces. This recipe yields a small amount, perfect for my husband and I, but can be easily doubled. The end result is a rich, flavorful base.” —Mary Jo Romano

Learn How to Make Espagnole Sauce, One of the 5 Mother Sauces (6)

A Note From Our Recipe Tester

Ingredients

1 bay leaf
3 to 4 sprigs fresh thyme
3 to 4 fresh parsley stems
7 to 8 whole black peppercorns
1 ounce clarified butter
1/2 cup diced onion
1/4 cup diced carrot
1/4 cup diced celery
1 ounce all-purpose flour
3 cups brown stock (i.e. beef stock)
2 tablespoons tomato puree

Steps to Make It

Gather the ingredients.
Fold the bay leaf, thyme, parsley stems, and peppercorns in a square of cheesecloth and tie the corners with a piece of kitchen twine. Leave one string long enough so that you can tie it to the handle of your pot to make it easier to retrieve.
In a heavy-duty medium saucepan, melt the butter over a medium heat until it becomes frothy.
Add the mirepoix—onions, carrots, and celery—and sauté until lightly browned, about 6 minutes. Don't let it burn.
With a wooden spoon, stir the flour into the mirepoix a little bit at a time until it is fully incorporated and forms a thick paste (this is your roux).
Lower the heat to low and cook the roux until it just starts to take on a very light brown color, 4 to 5 minutes. Again, don't let it burn.
Using a wire whisk, slowly add the stock and tomato purée, whisking vigorously to make sure it's free of lumps.
Bring to a boil, lower the heat to low, and add the sachet. Simmer until the total volume has reduced by 1/3 (you'll have about 2 cups), stirring frequently to make sure the sauce doesn't scorch at the bottom of the pan, 35 to 45 minutes.
Use a ladle to skim off any impurities that rise to the surface.
Remove the sauce from the heat, retrieve and discard the sachet.
For an extra smooth consistency, carefully pour the sauce through a wire mesh strainer lined with a piece of cheesecloth.
Keep the sauce covered and warm until you're ready to use it. If you won't be using it right away, cool it completely and refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

How to Use

Esagnole (brown sauce) is rarely used on its own, but can be used to give flavor and body to soups, stews, sauces, risottos, and more.
It's commonly used as a starting point for a number of sauces, most famously demi-glace. To make demi-glace, you'd combine equal parts espagnole and brown stockalong with additional aromatics and reduce it by half (hence demi).

What Are the 5 Mother Sauces?

There are five mother sauces of French cuisine: bechamel, hollandaise, velouté, espagnole, and tomato. These sauces are sometimes used as-is, but are often used in dishes or as a base for other, more complex sauces.

The Classic French Chateaubriand

Side Dishes
Vegetable Recipes
Carrot Recipes
Tomatoes Recipes

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
74	Calories
4g	Fat
8g	Carbs
3g	Protein

Show Full Nutrition Label

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 8
Amount per serving
Calories	74
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 4g	5%
Saturated Fat 2g	11%
Cholesterol 9mg	3%
Sodium 187mg	8%
Total Carbohydrate 8g	3%
Dietary Fiber 1g	5%
Total Sugars 2g
Protein 3g
Vitamin C 4mg	21%
Calcium 39mg	3%
Iron 2mg	9%
Potassium 277mg	6%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

Recipe Tags:

Tomato
dinner
french
christmas

Rate This Recipe

I don't like this at all.It's not the worst.Sure, this will do.I'm a fan—would recommend.Amazing! I love it!Thanks for your rating!