This Method Makes ANY Pan Sauce

With the method I’m showing you in this blog post, you can make any pan sauce imaginable.

Look at these 3 sauces I made, theres one for pork, chicken breast and one for steak. They all use different ingredients but follow the same method, its like a pan sauce blueprint.

All you really need is some fond stuck to the base of a frying pan, a saucepan, or even a roasting tray and a handful of everyday ingredients.

We’ve all eaten sauces that are too thick, too thin and of course the dreaded lumpy sauce. In this blog post I’ll show you how to avoid these mistakes and make a silky, tasty pan sauce every single time.

This method is easy to follow, can be adapted to suit any kind of meal and all the sauces come together quickly some in as little as 3 minutes.

Let’s start with an easy example.

Cider, Leek & Mustard Sauce For Pork

Every pan sauce starts with something frying or roasting in a panI’ve been cooking these pork medallions for around 5 minutes, they’re golden on both sides, juicy and looking delicious. Place them onto something to rest and crucially they’ve left behind this incredible fond, this is the key to a great pan sauce.

Just pour it out into a dish until you have an even coating covering the base of the pan without too much fat pooling at the bottom.

Place the pan back onto the a medium to low heat and add some finely diced leek, gently fry this for 2 to 3 minutes whilst occasionally stirring.

This is a small section of the white part of the leek, just remove the first few outside layers and dice it as fine as you can, the smaller you can cut it the quicker your sauce will be ready. You can get this prepped whilst your pork is cooking.

After 2 minutes of frying the leek is softened and some of that fond has already started to lift from the base of the pan, just from some gentle frying.

Now add 150ml, just over half a cup of cider, ideally a dry cider rather than a sweet one.

Turn the heat under the pan up-to high, and bring the cider to a boil whilst occasionally stirring and scraping any remaining fond from the base of the pan.

Once the cider has halved in volume, this happens surprisingly quickly once its boiling, you can add 300ml of chicken stock, this is a bit more than a cups worth.

Bring that back to a boil for 1 to 2 minutes until you have roughly a third of the original volume. You could use a pork stock if you happen have one, but 100% pork bone broths aren’t too common in European recipes.

Once the stock has reduced by around 2 thirds, turn the heat down so the sauce is simmering and add a heaped teaspoon of mustard. I’m using wholegrain mustard and dijon mustard would also work well, whisk that in and you’ll see your sauce thicken pretty much instantly.

At this point add any resting juices from your meat as well. Now for me this is the most important step of any pan sauce, getting the thickness of the sauce right.

A good way to gauge this is by, dragging your spoon through the sauce and if it leaves a trail behind like this, then your good to go.

Turn the heat under the pan off, taste it and adjust the seasoning with salt if needed. This will seem too thin when its in the pan, but when it hits the plate it’ll set just a little more and you’ll be left with a delicate sauce the coats the meat perfectly.

Pan Sauce Method

So heres the pan sauce recipe structure that I got taught as a young trainee cook. You’ll always start with a pan, a tray, something with some kind fond stuck to the bottom, whether its from pork, chicken, fish, beef, lamb…. You get the idea.

The first step is draining any excess fat. You want the base of the pan to have a thin, even coating. no more.

Next the frying stage, this is where you’ll cook whatever allium your choosing to use, this is commonly onion, shallot, leek and garlic. This is also where you can add other things like pancetta, mushrooms or whole peppercorns. We’ll go further on this a bit later.

After that you need to think about how you’re thickening the sauce. Ingredients used to do this are flour, cornstarch, mustard, cream and butter. These ingredients all get added to the sauce at different times.

Cream would get added after the stock comes to a boil. Butter, corn starch and mustard all get added closer to the end. If you’re using regular wheat flour, then you’ll add it at this point just after the frying stage. There’ll be an example of this in the last recipe.

Next the alcohol stage, this works in a tier system. So for weaker alcohols like cider or beer you’ll want around 150ml, for wines you’ll want roughly 100ml and for spirits and stronger alcohols you’ll want to use around 50ml.

All of these amounts are for 2 portions of sauce and I’m saying roughly because you don’t have to measure them exactly, just don’t use 200ml of tequilla or your sauce will be like firewater.

The alcohol step can be skipped all together, you’ll have to adjust the flavour of the recipe with something acidic and i’ll show you how to do this in the last recipe as well.

Next the stock, In all of the recipes today I’m using store-bought bouillon powder or cubes, I’m using this to show that you don’t need a gelatinous, 6 hour homemade stock to achieve high quality results.

There are some cheat methods out there where you add gelatin to store bought stock cubes to imitate a homemade stock. These sauces tend to look a little unnatural and synthetic once their on the plate and the flavour is something I can’t 100% put my finger on.

So for me it’s a no to these shortcut methods.

The last step is to dial in the thickness, taste it and adjust the seasoning.

That’s the basic pan sauce structure, you can follow this method for any pan sauce you like. Lets look at another recipe so you can see some of this in action.

White Wine Chicken Sauce

This time I have a chicken breast that’s been frying on a medium heat for around 7 minutes in total. Same as the pork chops, just put it somewhere to rest whilst we make the sauce.

If you’re worried about the meat cooling down too much in this resting period don’t be, as long as whatever you’re putting it on isn’t cold then the meat will hold its temperature just fine. If you want to be double sure, then cover it with something whilst you make the sauce.

Drain the pan and place it over a medium to low heat.

This time we’re adding around a dessert spoon of finely diced shallot, once again the finer the better. These will cook quickly, so stay with the pan, stirring them regularly.

After around a minute they’ll be looking more translucent, now add 100ml of white wine, a rose would also work well for the recipe. Turn the heat up under the pan, bring the wine to a boil whilst occasionally stirring.

And once its roughly halved in volume add 300ml of chicken stock, bring the pan back to a boil for around 2 minutes or until you have roughly a third of the liquid, like this.

Now turn the heat under the pan off, then add a cube of fridge cold butter whilst whisking, and if you want it a bit more luxurious and you’re not scared of butter then add another cube after that and whisk it in as well.

Importantly the butter has to be cold, this gives you time to emulsify it into the sauce as it slowly melts, this is called a “monte au beurre”, it’s one of the classic French methods of thickening a sauce.

If this sauce splits on you for what ever reason, then add a dash of water to the pan and bring it back to a boil whilst whisking, this will bring it back together. You’ll know its split because you’ll have a layer of fat sitting on top of a thin, watery sauce. Something like this.

For this butter thickened sauce in particular you’re looking for a silky sheen.

This sauce is my favourite, it’s tasty, uses 4 ingredients and comes together quickly.

Mushroom Sauce to go with Steak

Next up, a sauce to go with steak, it’s going to be an example of a flour-thickened sauce, these are the ones that famously go lumpy and I’ll show you how to avoid this.

Here I’ve got some hanger steak sizzling in the pan, its been cooking for around 3 minutes in total. Usual routine, rest your meat, drain any excess fat from the pan and place it back onto a medium to low heat.

This time i’m using onion, more specifically fine diced red onion and a clove of garlic that have been peeled, cut in half and lightly crushed. Cook those for 1 minute until the onion is looking like this, slightly translucent and starting to smell a little sweet.

Then add a handful of chopped mushrooms, These could be any mushrooms, button, chestnut, portobello. Once again cut the smaller the better but you don’t have to go as extreme as the onions.

Turn the heat up under the pan and cook these for another 2 minutes, you can be quite aggressive with frying mushrooms, they have a lot of water content to lose.

Now take the pan off the heat and add a heaped teaspoon of flour, stir that in until you have a paste and return the pan to a low heat. Cook that for 30 seconds or so and you want to be careful not to burn the flour at this stage, you can add a little more fat if it’s looking a bit dry.

For this sauce I’m skipping the alcohol step all together so we’ll follow with 300ml of hot beef stock

Add a splash, stir it in until you have a thick, pretty smooth paste. Then gradually add the rest of the stock in 2 or 3 stages whist stirring.

Adding the liquid in stages like this and stirring it in is what prevents lumps. Turn up the heat under the pan and bring it to a boil, cook this for 2 to 3 minutes.

Because this sauce has no alcohol it needs some tartness or acidty to lift all the other flavours, a dash of vinegar would work well at this stage but I’m going to go with a teaspoon of red currant jelly.

The idea is not to taste the redcurrant or vinegar when its mixed in the sauce, all it should be doing is unlocking and enchancing all other flavours that are already in this sauce.

Remember to go a bit thinner than you want it to be in the end, This rule applies the most to flour thickened sauces because they tend to set much more when they’re on the plate.

To me this sauce has the classic French home cooked flavour, it’s rich, beefy and delicious and the mushrooms take it to another level.

If you want to use the fond from a roasting tray for your pan sauce then you have 2 options.

You can de-glaze the tray with stock, water or alcohol and complete all the other steps in a saucepan or frying pan. Or you can be a maverick and do all the steps in the tray just as you would with a frying pan.

Just know this is an easy way to burn yourself.

By now you see the structure of this pan sauce method working in its different ways across these 3 recipes, pan sauces are a simple, quick way of taking every day weeknight meals up to a new level of flavour.

Pro’s and Con’s of Each Thickening Method

• Butter – Gives a great flavour, texture and it’s easy but it can split easily.
• Wheat Flour – Gives a traditional, homecooked flavour but it can give a lumpy sauce if the liquids don’t get added gradually.
• Corn Flour – Quick and easy to add to any pan sauce recipe but can give a chalky texture and doesn’t reheat well.
• Cream – Gives a rich depth in flavour but it can split if using a low fat content cream.
• Mustard – Probably my favourite method because it’s the easiest and there’s no risk of the sauce splitting, the only downside is it’s not always a flavour that’s wanted for the sauce