Most classic sauces are variations on a handful of base sauces, and the idea is not only French: Germany, Japan, India, Mexico, Korea, and China each have their own bases (see below). Learn the base and its thickener, and the derivatives are just a few added ingredients. Antonin Carême named four "mother sauces" (Espagnole, Velouté, Allemande, Béchamel) in the early 1800s; Auguste Escoffier trimmed that to the five below around 1900, demoting Allemande to a velouté derivative and adding Sauce Tomate and Hollandaise.

• Roux (fat + flour), the thickener behind three of the five
  • Béchamel (white roux + milk) - Mornay, Soubise, Nantua, cream sauce
  • Velouté (blond roux + light stock) - Allemande, Suprême, Bercy, Normande
  • Espagnole (brown roux + brown stock + tomato)
    • Demi-glace (Espagnole + brown stock, reduced by half) - Bordelaise, Chasseur, Robert (Charcutière), Madeira (Périgueux), Poivrade, Lyonnaise, Diable, Bigarade
• Sauce Tomate (tomato + mirepoix) - Provençale, Creole, Bolognese
• Emulsions
  • Hollandaise (warm, egg yolk + butter) - Béarnaise, Maltaise, Mousseline
  • Mayonnaise (cold, egg yolk + oil) - Aïoli, Rémoulade, Tartare
  • Beurre Blanc (reduction + cold butter)
  • Vinaigrette (oil + acid, unstable)
• Other European and American bases: Pan Sauce & Jus, Herb-Oil Sauces, BBQ Sauce
• Around the world
  • Grundsoßen (German roux and pan-drippings bases) - Bratensoße, Jägersoße, Senfsoße
  • Kaeshi & Tare (Japanese soy bases) - tsuyu, teriyaki, ponzu, plus Japanese curry roux and hayashi
  • Base Gravies (Indian) - white, red, brown, green
  • Salsas & Mole (Mexican) - roja, verde, adobo, mole
  • Jang (Korean fermented bases) - ganjang, doenjang, gochujang
  • Master Stock & Hong Shao (Chinese) - red-braise, brown sauce

• Ingredients: Equal parts fat and flour by weight.
• Ratio to liquid: Per cup (240 ml) of liquid, 1 tablespoon each of fat and flour gives a thin sauce, 2 tablespoons a medium sauce (the standard for most sauces), and 3 tablespoons a thick one.
• Cooking Fat: Butter for the French sauces; clarified butter, lard, or oil for darker roux, which can scorch milk solids.
• Method: Melt the fat, stir in the flour, and cook, stirring, to the desired color. The longer it cooks, the darker and nuttier it gets and the less thickening power it has, since browned starch thickens less.
  • White (a couple of minutes, no color): Béchamel and cream sauces.
  • Blond (golden, smells like baked biscuits): Velouté.
  • Brown (the color of peanut butter, 15 to 30 minutes at low heat): Espagnole and brown gravies.
  • Dark brown (the color of chocolate, 30 to 45 minutes or more): Cajun and Creole gumbo, where it is the flavor as much as the thickener.
• Use: Combine a cool roux with hot liquid, or a hot roux with cool liquid, whisking steadily, to avoid lumps. Simmer at least 10 minutes to cook out the raw flour taste.
• See also: Aromatic Bases, since Espagnole and Sauce Tomate both start from a mirepoix, and the Cajun dark roux sits next to the Holy Trinity in a gumbo. Roux also travelled east: Japanese curry is built on one, and Germany's Grundsoßen start from a Mehlschwitze.

• Ingredients: White roux, milk, and often an onion studded with a clove (oignon piqué), bay leaf, nutmeg, salt, and white pepper.
• Ratio: Medium roux (2 tablespoons fat and flour per cup of milk) for a classic sauce; less for a pourable one, more for a binder in croquettes or soufflés.
• Method: Whisk warm milk into a white roux and simmer 10 to 15 minutes, with the onion and bay if using.
• Use: Lasagna, gratins, croque monsieur, and as the base for many cheese and cream sauces.
• Derivatives:
  • Mornay: Béchamel finished with Gruyère and/or Parmesan, sometimes an egg yolk. Mac and cheese made with a roux is this.
  • Soubise: Béchamel with onions cooked slowly in butter until soft and pale, then puréed in. Often served with lamb, veal, and eggs.
  • Nantua: Béchamel with crayfish butter and cream, served with fish and quenelles.
  • Cream sauce: Béchamel thinned with cream.
• See also: Velouté, the same method with stock instead of milk, and the Indian white gravy, a mild, creamy base thickened with nuts and yogurt instead of flour.

• Ingredients: Blond roux and a light, unbrowned stock: chicken, veal, or fish. The stock is what names the sauce (chicken velouté, fish velouté).
• Ratio: Medium roux, 2 tablespoons fat and flour per cup of stock.
• Method: Whisk hot stock into a blond roux and simmer gently for 30 minutes or more, skimming, until smooth and glossy (velouté means "velvety").
• Use: Chicken and fish dishes, pot pies, and as the base for the sauces below.
• Derivatives:
  • Allemande: Veal or chicken velouté enriched with egg yolk, cream, and lemon juice. Carême's own mother sauce, later demoted to a velouté derivative.
  • Suprême: Chicken velouté finished with cream; sometimes with a little mushroom cooking liquid.
  • Bercy: Fish velouté with shallots, white wine, and parsley.
  • Normande: Fish velouté with fish stock, mushroom cooking liquid, egg yolk, and cream.
• See also: Béchamel, the milk version, Espagnole, the brown-stock version, and the German helle Grundsoße, its direct counterpart.

• Ingredients: Brown roux, brown veal stock, mirepoix (browned), tomato purée, and a bouquet garni (bay, thyme, parsley).
• Ratio: 2 to 3 tablespoons each of fat and flour per cup of stock, a medium to heavy roux, since the long simmer thickens it further by reduction as well. For the mirepoix, 2 parts onion to 1 part each carrot and celery.
• Method: Brown the mirepoix, add tomato purée and cook until it darkens, stir into the brown roux, add hot stock, and simmer for hours, skimming off the skin and fat, until it coats a spoon. Strain.
• Use: Rarely served as it is; it is a working base, and nearly always carried one step further into Demi-glace.
• See also: Sauce Tomate, which shares the tomato and mirepoix but takes a lighter, brighter direction, and the German braune Grundsoße, its pan-drippings cousin built on Suppengrün.

• Ingredients: Espagnole and brown stock, in equal parts.
• Method: Simmer the two together until reduced by half, skimming and straining. It ends up glossy and deeply savory, thick enough to coat a spoon.
• Use: The base for most classic brown sauces, and a finishing sauce for steak, roasts, and game on its own.
• Modern note: Most kitchens today skip the Espagnole and make a "demi" by reducing a strong brown stock alone, leaving it thick from its own gelatin, with no flour at all. It is faster, lighter, and gluten-free, though it is no longer technically a roux sauce.
• Derivatives: Bordelaise, Chasseur, Robert and Charcutière, Madeira and Périgueux, Poivrade, Lyonnaise, Diable, and Bigarade, each below.
• See also: Espagnole, its parent, Pan Sauce & Jus, the quick home version of the same idea, and Hayashi sauce, Japan's demi-glace-based beef stew.

Each of these starts from demi-glace and adds a reduction of wine or vinegar, aromatics, and a finishing touch. The method is nearly always the same: reduce the flavoring ingredients almost dry, add the demi-glace, simmer briefly, strain if needed, and finish with butter off the heat.

• Ingredients: Red wine (traditionally Bordeaux), shallots, thyme, bay, peppercorns, demi-glace, and butter; classically garnished with slices of poached bone marrow, with parsley and a little lemon juice.
• Method: Reduce the wine with the shallots and herbs until nearly dry, add demi-glace, simmer, strain, and finish with butter and the marrow.
• Use: Steak, especially filet and entrecôte, and roast beef.
• See also: Béarnaise, the other classic French steak sauce, and Madeira, the same method with fortified wine.

• Ingredients: Mushrooms, shallots, white wine, tomato (fresh, or a little purée), demi-glace, and butter, finished with tarragon, chervil, and parsley.
• Method: Brown the mushrooms in butter, add the shallots, deglaze with white wine and reduce, then add tomato and demi-glace and simmer.
• Use: Chicken (poulet chasseur), veal, rabbit, game birds, and steak.
• See also: The German Jägersoße, which is the same idea, and Sauce Tomate, for the tomato.

• Ingredients: Onions, butter, white wine, demi-glace, and mustard, with a pinch of sugar.
• Method: Cook the onions in butter until soft and lightly colored, add white wine and reduce, then add demi-glace, simmer, and whisk in the mustard at the end without boiling it, so it stays sharp.
• Use: Pork chops and roast pork, and grilled sausages.
• Derivatives: Charcutière.
• See also: Lyonnaise, the other onion-based demi-glace sauce, and the German Senfsoße, a mustard sauce from the light side.

• Ingredients: Sauce Robert with chopped or julienned gherkins (cornichons) added at the end.
• Method: Make the Robert, then add the gherkins off the heat.
• Use: Pork, in particular grilled pork chops and sausages; charcutier is the French word for pork butcher.

• Ingredients: Madeira, demi-glace, and butter, sometimes with shallots.
• Method: Reduce the Madeira by about half, add demi-glace, simmer, and finish with butter.
• Use: Beef tenderloin, ham, and veal, and as a base for mushroom sauces.
• Derivatives: Périgueux.
• See also: Bordelaise, the same method with red wine.

• Ingredients: Madeira sauce with chopped black truffles and their juice.
• Method: Add the truffle and its juice to the finished Madeira sauce and warm it through without boiling.
• Use: Tournedos Rossini and beef Wellington, and with foie gras.

• Ingredients: Mirepoix, crushed peppercorns, vinegar, white wine, and demi-glace; made from the marinade or trimmings when used with game.
• Method: Brown the mirepoix, add the peppercorns, reduce the vinegar and wine almost dry, add demi-glace, simmer, and strain.
• Use: Game, such as venison and wild boar, and robust cuts of beef.
• Derivatives: Grand Veneur adds redcurrant jelly and cream.
• See also: The German Pfeffersoße and Mirepoix.

• Ingredients: Onions, butter, white wine, white wine vinegar, and demi-glace.
• Method: Cook the onions slowly in butter until golden, add the wine and vinegar and reduce, then the demi-glace, and simmer.
• Use: Beef, offal, sausages, and potatoes.
• See also: Robert, which swaps the vinegar for mustard, and Soubise, the white, creamy onion sauce.

• Ingredients: Shallots, white wine, white wine vinegar, cayenne, black pepper, and demi-glace.
• Method: Reduce the shallots, wine, and vinegar nearly dry with the pepper, add demi-glace, and season with cayenne.
• Use: Grilled chicken (poulet à la diable), and grilled meat and fish.
• See also: Poivrade, the other pepper-forward sauce, with crushed peppercorns and mirepoix rather than cayenne.

• Ingredients: Sugar and vinegar cooked to a caramel (a gastrique), orange and lemon juice, demi-glace or duck jus, and blanched orange zest; traditionally made with bitter Seville oranges, the bigarade.
• Method: Caramelize the sugar, deglaze with vinegar, add the juice and demi-glace, reduce, and finish with the zest and a little butter.
• Use: Duck, the sauce for duck à l'orange.
• See also: Maltaise, the orange-flavored Hollandaise, rich and buttery where Bigarade is sharp and sweet.

• Ingredients: Tomatoes, mirepoix (onion and carrot, often without celery), salt pork or bacon, garlic, and herbs. Stock is added in the classic version.
• Ratio: For a simple, everyday version: two 28-ounce cans of whole peeled tomatoes, 2 to 3 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, and 2 to 4 cloves of garlic.
• Thickener: Historically a little roux; now usually reduction alone, so it is the one "mother sauce" that is not necessarily roux-based.
• Method: Render the pork, sweat the aromatics, add tomatoes and herbs, simmer for 1 to 2 hours, then strain or pass through a food mill.
• Use: Pasta, braises, pizza, and as a base for other sauces.
• Derivatives:
  • Provençale: Garlic, olive oil, and herbs, sometimes olives or anchovy.
  • Creole: Tomato with the Holy Trinity, garlic, and cayenne.
  • Bolognese (ragù): Tomato with a soffritto, ground meat, milk, and wine, cooked for hours.
• See also: Sofrito and Ata / Obe, tomato-and-aromatic bases that appear in other cuisines, Mexican salsa roja, and the red Indian base gravy.

An emulsion holds fat and water together in a smooth suspension, normally by whisking a fat into a liquid with an emulsifier (egg yolk's lecithin, or the proteins in butter solids). These do not need a roux; they are stabilized by technique and temperature instead.

• Ingredients: Egg yolks, melted (or clarified) butter, lemon juice, salt, and a pinch of cayenne.
• Ratio: About 1 egg yolk to 4 tablespoons (60 g) of butter; more butter makes it thicker.
• Method: Whisk yolks with a little water or lemon juice over gentle heat (a double boiler) until thick and pale, then whisk in warm butter in a thin stream. Keep it warm, not hot; above about 160 F (70 C) it scrambles, and cold it will set or break.
• Use: Eggs Benedict, asparagus, and fish.
• Derivatives:
  • Béarnaise: Made with a reduction of white wine, vinegar, shallot, and tarragon instead of lemon juice, finished with chopped tarragon and chervil. The classic steak sauce. For 2 to 3 egg yolks, reduce about 1/4 cup each of white wine and vinegar with 1 tablespoon of minced shallot and a tablespoon of tarragon, then make the Hollandaise with the strained reduction.
    • Choron: Béarnaise with tomato purée.
    • Foyot (Valois): Béarnaise with meat glaze.
  • Maltaise: Hollandaise with blood orange juice and zest, for asparagus.
  • Mousseline: Hollandaise lightened with whipped cream, for fish.
• See also: Mayonnaise, the cold version made with oil, and Beurre Blanc, which skips the yolk.

• Ingredients: Egg yolk, neutral oil, an acid (lemon juice or vinegar), mustard, and salt.
• Ratio: One yolk takes up to about 3/4 cup (180 ml) of oil, added drop by drop at first and then in a thin stream.
• Method: Whisk the yolk with the acid and mustard, then slowly whisk in the oil. It is the same idea as Hollandaise, in the cold, with oil rather than butter.
• Use: Sandwiches, salads (potato, egg, tuna, coleslaw), and the base for cold sauces.
• Derivatives:
  • Aïoli: Garlic and olive oil, from Provence; the traditional version is pounded garlic and oil with no egg at all, and the modern one is garlic mayonnaise.
  • Rémoulade: Mayonnaise with capers, gherkins, herbs, and mustard, sometimes anchovy. The Louisiana version adds Creole mustard, paprika, and horseradish.
  • Tartare: Mayonnaise with chopped capers, gherkins, shallot, and herbs; fried fish.
• See also: BBQ Sauce, since Alabama white sauce is a mayonnaise-based one.

• Ingredients: Shallots, white wine, white wine vinegar, and cold butter.
• Ratio: About 4 parts butter to 1 part reduction: reduce the wine, vinegar, and shallot to about 2 tablespoons, then whisk in about 1 stick (8 tablespoons) of cold butter.
• Method: Reduce the wine, vinegar, and shallot to a couple of tablespoons, then whisk in cold butter a cube at a time, off and on the heat, so it emulsifies without melting. Strain, or leave the shallot in.
• Use: Poached and grilled fish; from the Loire valley, traditionally with pike or shad.
• Derivatives: Beurre rouge uses red wine in place of white.
• See also: Hollandaise, the yolk-bound version.

• Ingredients: Oil, an acid (vinegar or citrus juice), salt, and often mustard and shallot.
• Ratio: 3 parts oil to 1 part acid is the classic starting point; use less oil for a sharper dressing.
• Method: Whisk or shake. A little mustard acts as an emulsifier and keeps it from separating so fast; without it, the sauce is a temporary emulsion that separates on standing.
• Use: Salads, cold vegetables, and marinades.
• See also: Ponzu and sanbaizu, Japan's soy-and-acid dressings, which have no oil at all.

• Ingredients: The browned bits (fond) left in the pan after searing meat, deglazed with wine or stock, with shallot, then finished with butter.
• Ratio: About 1/2 cup of wine or stock per shallot or two, and 1 to 2 tablespoons of cold butter to finish.
• Thickener: Reduction, and a knob of cold butter to finish (monter au beurre). A jus lié is thickened with a little cornstarch or arrowroot.
• Use: Steaks, chops, chicken, and roasts. The quick, home-sized relative of Demi-glace.
• See also: Gravy, the American variant, is the same pan drippings thickened with a roux (flour cooked in the fat from the pan), like a quick Espagnole.

• Ingredients: Fresh herbs chopped or pounded with oil, acid, garlic, and salt. Chimichurri (Argentina) uses parsley, oregano, garlic, vinegar, and chili; salsa verde (Italy) uses parsley, capers, anchovy, garlic, and vinegar; pesto (Liguria) uses basil, pine nuts, garlic, and Parmesan.
• Ratio: For chimichurri, roughly 1 cup of chopped parsley to 1/2 cup of oil and 2 to 3 tablespoons of vinegar; it varies a lot by cook.
• Method: No cooking, no thickener; texture comes from the chopped herbs and the oil.
• Use: Grilled meat and fish, vegetables, and pasta. Chimichurri is the natural partner for grilled steak.
• See also: Chermoula, zhoug, and nước chấm for the same fresh, uncooked idea from North Africa, the Levant, and Vietnam.

• Ingredients: It is a family of regional bases rather than one sauce. They are:
  • Kansas City: thick, sweet, and tomato-based, with molasses or brown sugar.
  • Eastern Carolina: vinegar and chili flakes, thin, with no tomato.
  • South Carolina: mustard-based ("Carolina Gold"), with vinegar and sugar.
  • Alabama white: mayonnaise, vinegar, and horseradish, thin, for chicken.
  • Texas: thin, savory, and tomato-based, often with beef drippings, sometimes used as a mop.
• See also: Sauce Tomate (the Kansas City style is a tomato sauce with sugar and vinegar), Mayonnaise (Alabama white), and Gochujang and Japanese tonkatsu sauce, two sweet-savory-spicy relatives from Asia.

These are not "mother sauces" in the French sense of five fixed recipes, but each does the same job: one base, made ahead or kept on hand, that many dishes branch from. Several do it with a different thickener (nuts, ground chiles, fermented beans, caramelized sugar), which is a useful contrast with the roux and emulsions above.

• Ingredients: Two base sauces. The helle Grundsoße (light) is a Mehlschwitze (roux) with a pale veal, chicken, or fish stock. The braune Grundsoße (brown) is roasted bones or trimmings, browned Suppengrün and onion, tomato paste, red wine, and brown stock, simmered and strained. Bratensoße, the everyday version, is the same idea made from the Bratensatz (roast drippings) left in the pan, deglazed with stock or wine.
• Thickener: A Mehlschwitze, or a little starch (Soßenbinder, cornstarch) stirred in at the end; modern kitchens often reduce and bind lightly rather than building a heavy roux.
• Use: Roasts (Braten), Rouladen, Schnitzel, dumplings, and potatoes, which are there to carry the sauce.
• Derivatives:
  • From the helle Grundsoße: Senfsoße (mustard, with eggs or fish), Kapernsoße (Königsberger Klopse), Dillsoße, Meerrettichsoße (horseradish, with boiled beef), and any Rahmsoße (cream sauce), such as Champignon-Rahmsoße.
  • From the braune Grundsoße: Jägersoße (mushrooms, bacon, onion), Zwiebelsoße, Rotweinsoße, Pfeffersoße, and Paprikasoße (also sold as Paprikasauce Ungarische Art, with tomato, bell pepper, and pickled peppers).
• See also: Velouté and Espagnole, the French counterparts that the two Grundsoßen mirror almost exactly, and Suppengrün, the German aromatic base the brown sauce is built on in place of mirepoix.

• Ingredients: Kaeshi is soy sauce, mirin, and sugar, heated together once and kept (some cooks age it for days or weeks so the flavors mellow). Dashi (kombu and katsuobushi) is the other half, the stock behind it.
• Ratio: 5 (or less) : 1 : 1 by volume of soy sauce to mirin to sugar. Five parts soy is the standard; some cooks tone it down to 4:1:1 or even 3:1:1 for a sweeter, milder kaeshi. The ratio of kaeshi to dashi is what changes between a dipping sauce, a noodle soup, and a simmering liquid.
• Method: Kaeshi plus dashi gives tsuyu (the dipping or noodle broth). The same two, with different proportions and added sake, make teriyaki glaze, sukiyaki's warishita, and the sauce for donburi (rice bowls) and oyakodon.
• Tare: Ramen takes a concentrated seasoning (tare) put into the bowl first, then the broth poured over it: shio (salt), shoyu (soy), or miso. The broth is the body; the tare is the flavor.
• Acid versions: Ponzu is soy sauce with citrus juice (yuzu or sudachi), often with dashi and mirin. Sanbaizu ("three-cup vinegar") is rice vinegar, soy, and mirin or sugar, for vinegared dishes.
• Roux, in Japan: Japanese curry is built on a roux, flour cooked in fat with curry powder, usually sold as solid blocks, and goes into a stew of onion, carrot, and potato over rice. It came from the British navy's curry powder and a roux, much as in France. Hayashi sauce, from the Yōshoku (Western-style Japanese) tradition, is beef and onions in a demi-glace-based sauce. Tonkatsu sauce is a fruit-and-vegetable sauce descended from Worcestershire.
• See also: Roux and Demi-glace, the French sources of the curry and hayashi sauces; Hong Shao, the Chinese soy, wine, and sugar braise that kaeshi is a lighter, cleaner cousin of; and Jang, Korea's fermented relatives of Japanese miso and soy sauce.

• Ingredients: A few ready-made gravies that a restaurant keeps on hand and combines to order. Kitchens vary, but the common ones are:
  • White: boiled onion blended with cashew or almond paste (sometimes melon seeds), yogurt or cream, and mild spices; korma, shahi paneer, and malai kofta.
  • Red: tomato and onion cooked down, with butter and cream in the makhani version; butter chicken, paneer butter masala, and tikka masala.
  • Brown: onions fried slowly until deeply brown, with ginger-garlic paste and spices; rogan josh, bhuna, and kadai dishes.
  • Green: spinach or coriander, mint, and green chilies; palak (saag) and hariyali dishes.
• Thickener: No flour. Onions cooked and blended, ground nuts or seeds, and yogurt or cream do the thickening, with fat (ghee or oil) carried in the mix.
• Method: Each gravy is cooked down until the fat separates from the base (bhuna), then blended smooth. The finished dish is made by adding the protein or vegetable plus a few spices, finished with a tadka (spices bloomed in hot ghee or oil, poured over at the end). British Indian restaurants use a single "base gravy" of onion, tomato, garlic, ginger, and turmeric the same way.
• Use: One pot of base, many curries; the different dishes mostly differ in which gravy, spice, and finish are used.
• See also: Ginger-Garlic-Onion Paste & Tadka, the aromatic start every gravy builds on; Béchamel (the white gravy is a similar mild, creamy base); Sauce Tomate (the red one); and Bumbu Dasar, Indonesia's white, red, and yellow version of the same system.

• Ingredients:
  • Salsa roja: tomato (or dried chiles such as guajillo and árbol), onion, and garlic, blended.
  • Salsa verde: tomatillo, fresh serrano or jalapeño, cilantro, onion, and garlic.
  • Adobo: dried chiles rehydrated and blended with garlic, vinegar, and spices such as cumin and oregano, used as a marinade and a cooking sauce.
  • Mole: dried chiles (ancho, pasilla, mulato), toasted nuts and seeds, dried fruit, spices, and often chocolate, with bread or tortilla to thicken. There are dozens of regional versions: mole poblano, Oaxaca's black, red (coloradito), yellow, and green moles, and pipián (made with pumpkin seeds).
• Thickener: Ground chiles, nuts, seeds, and toasted bread or tortilla; no roux.
• Method: Toast and rehydrate the chiles, blend, then fry the purée in hot lard or oil (sazonar), which cooks off the raw edge and deepens the color. A mole is fried, then simmered long and slowly with stock.
• Use: Enchiladas, chilaquiles, tamales, braised meat, and tacos; mole over turkey or chicken at celebrations.
• See also: Sauce Tomate (a cooked tomato sauce, a close cousin of salsa roja), Sofrito (the Spanish aromatic base that traveled to the Americas), and the nut-thickened white gravy of India.

• Ingredients: Three fermented bases.
  • Ganjang (soy sauce) and doenjang (fermented soybean paste), which are made together: blocks of fermented soybean (meju) are soaked in brine, and the liquid becomes ganjang while the solids become doenjang.
  • Gochujang (chili paste), which combines chili powder, glutinous rice, fermented soybean powder, and salt, and is sweet, savory, and hot.
• Method: Fermented for months or years, and used as the seasoning (and sometimes the thickener) in a dish rather than as a sauce on its own. Mixed together or with other ingredients, they become the dipping sauces, marinades, and stew bases below.
• Use: Soups and stews (doenjang-jjigae), banchan (side dishes), bibimbap, and grilled meat.
• Derivatives:
  • Ssamjang: doenjang and gochujang with sesame oil, garlic, and scallion, for wrapping grilled meat in lettuce.
  • Yangnyeom ganjang: soy sauce with garlic, scallion, sesame, and chili; a dipping sauce and a general seasoning.
  • Bulgogi marinade: ganjang, sugar, sesame oil, garlic, and grated pear.
  • Cho-gochujang: gochujang with vinegar and sugar, for raw fish and cold noodles.
• See also: Kaeshi & Tare, Japan's soy-based relative, and The Three, the scallion-ginger-garlic Chinese start that Korean cooking shares (with chili) in its seasonings.

• Ingredients: Master stock (lu shui, 卤水) is soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, rock sugar, star anise, cassia, ginger, and scallion, in water, and reused indefinitely, strained and replenished after each use, so it picks up flavor over years. Hong shao ("red cooking," 红烧) is the same flavors used as a one-time braise, with the sugar caramelized first for color.
• Method: Poach or braise meat in the master stock, then rest it in the liquid; for hong shao, caramelize the sugar in oil, add the meat and aromatics, then soy, wine, and water, and simmer until the sauce reduces to a glossy glaze.
• Brown sauce: The stir-fry cousin is soy sauce, oyster sauce, stock, and sugar, thickened with a cornstarch slurry (shui dian fen) added at the end. This starch slurry is the Chinese counterpart of a roux: it gives a glossy, clinging sauce in seconds.
• Use: Red-braised pork belly (hong shao rou), braised duck and tofu, soy-sauce chicken, and the stir-fry sauces in restaurant kitchens.
• See also: The Three, the aromatic start; Kho / Nước Màu, Vietnam's caramelized-sugar braise, built on the same caramel-first idea; Kaeshi & Tare; and Roux, for the French way of thickening a sauce.

Not bases that branch into families, but sauces that appear again and again:

• Avgolemono (Greek): egg and lemon, tempered into hot stock; a thickener that is neither roux nor a true emulsion.
• Tarator and tahini sauce (Levant): tahini, lemon, garlic, and water, whisked into a pale creamy sauce.
• Toum (Lebanese): garlic, oil, and lemon emulsified with no egg; the cousin of aïoli.
• Chermoula (North Africa) and zhoug (Yemen, Israel): fresh herbs, garlic, and spices (and chilies for zhoug) ground with oil, in the family of herb-oil sauces.
• Maafe (West Africa): a peanut and tomato sauce, built on Ata / Obe.
• Nước chấm (Vietnam): fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, and water in about 1:1:1:2, with garlic and chili, adjusted to taste; the table dressing for rice, noodles, and grilled meat.
• Bumbu kacang (Indonesian peanut sauce) and sambal: peanut sauce and chili pastes made from the Bumbu Dasar and Rempah family.