ByAcademy of Culinary NutritionLast updated onReading Time: 9 minutes
Homemade sauces provide wonderful flavour and texture to recipes – they can instantly liven up a bland plate, entice you to eat more veggies, and add an extra layer of nutrition to a meal. You might be used to purchasing condiments like salad dressings, dips, spreads and sauces at the grocery store, but when you make them at home you can control exactly what goes into them and play with fresh ingredients and spices that enhance your health.
There isn’t a single standard formula or ratio for creating sauces as there may be with other condiments; still, we’ve found there are some essential qualities and ingredients that go into a good sauce. For us at the Academy of Culinary Nutrition, homemade sauces must be:
Relatively thick and creamy: we want it to be spreadable/dippable – when a sauce gets too thin, it turns into salad dressing territory!
Quick and easy
Free of preservatives, excess salt and sugar
Made with fresh ingredients and whole foods
Versatile – we love being able to use a single recipe as a dipping sauce, sandwich spread, marinade or power bowl ingredient
The first step to creating a delicious sauce is deciding what you want the flavour profile to be and how you want to use it. For example, there aren’t many meals where you’d use a hot sauce and a gravy interchangeably. We have more details about seasoning options below, but an essential first step is to consider if you want your sauce to be sweet or savory, and what herbs and spices you can incorporate.
2. Choose between blended or chunky.
We love thick, creamy and blended sauces, but it’s really up to you what you’d like to create – and some homemade sauces may not fully work as well when totally blended, like tomato sauce and salsa.
3. The fat factor.
While not all dips and sauces will necessarily need a nutritious fat or oil, they do lend a heck of a lot of flavour and mouthfeel, help to balance blood sugar levels and are satiating. Some of the fat options you could choose include:
Ground flax or chia seeds (these will help to thicken a dip or sauce, too)
4. Incorporate some vegetables.
A lot of homemade sauces focus on specific vegetables, such as tomato sauce, spinach and artichoke dip, salsa, guacamole, and others. Garlic and onions, fantastic immune-boosting foods, are often central to many sauces.
Consider how you might be able to amp up the nutritional profile and add more fibre by including more vegetables, or using vegetables that conventional recipes do not always have. Try adding some pumpkin purée or mashed sweet potatoes to tomato, curry or BBQ sauce, or blend in some butternut squash or red pepper to make a dairy-free cream sauce.
Starchy vegetables like pumpkins, winter squashes, yams, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips and celery root can make tasty bases for comfort-food sauces with a nutritious twist, as can cauliflower and mushrooms.
5. Use herbs and spices to boost nutrition.
The health benefits of your sauces will depend on the herbs you choose, but in general most herbs and spices have anti-inflammatory, immune-boosting, anti-bacterial and antiviral properties, and are sources of antioxidants.
6. Add salt, sweetness or an acid to balance flavours.
Homemade sauces will benefit from a nice balance of flavours. We have some suggestions below for balancing flavours, and we also love the book Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat, one of our favourite food activists, and the Netflix documentary of the same name.
Most savory dips and sauces will need sweetness to balance out salty, sour, spicy or bitter flavours. You may want to add a natural sweetener to BBQ sauce or teriyaki sauce which relies on the sweet-tangy connection, or you could use molasses, dates or other fruit to sweeten.
Acids
There are a variety of acidic ingredients you can use to adjust the flavours of your sauces, including:
Some sauces will have a protein built right in, like chickpeas in hummus or yogurt in several kinds of dips and sauces. There are also a number of sauces that include nut and seed butters. However, not all sauces will necessarily need a protein – since in most cases you will be using them to top a balanced meal or snack.
homemade Sauces: ideas and inspiration
Let’s take a look at some of the essential components and combinations you can use to make common homemade sauces!
BBQ Sauce
Key Ingredients
Tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes, or fresh chopped tomatoes
Honey or maple syrup
Apple cider vinegar
Garlic
Onions
Mustard
Molasses
Best Uses: Marinade, dipping sauce, baked beans, glazes, meatballs, BBQ-style pizza and tacos
Gluten-free flour, for thickening (rice, tapioca and arrowroot work well)
Thyme
Garlic and onion powder
Mushrooms
Best Uses: Served over rice, pasta, polenta, animal protein, or mashed/steamed/roasted vegetables, topping for meat or veggie loaf, fold into meatballs for extra flavour
Almonds, cashews, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds or pumpkin seeds
Lemon
Garlic
Olive oil
Best Uses: Salads, pasta, taco or burrito topping, dip for fresh veggies or gluten-free crackers, marinade, pizza sauce, sauce for cooked vegetables, gluten-free toast
Best Uses: Gluten-free noodles, stir-fries, dipping sauces, wraps, marinade for meat, vegetables or tofu/tempeh, salads, power bowls
Recipe to Try:No-Peanut Sauce by Meghan Telpner (*ACN Founder + Director)
Thickening Homemade Sauces
As we mentioned, we like our sauces to be thick. There are a few options for creating a thick sauce, such as using:
Less liquids
Mashed starchy vegetables or cauliflower
Cashew cream or coconut cream
Solid fat like coconut oil or ghee
Gluten-free flour
Ground chia seeds or flax seeds (add after cooking, as their nutrients are delicate and can be damaged by heat)
Some sauces will naturally thicken and firm up in the fridge, like gravies, sauces with flax or chia, or coconut products.
Storing Homemade Sauces
Store all of your sauce creations in well-sealed containers in the fridge or freezer. Sauces with larger ratios of an acid (citrus, vinegar) should keep longer in the fridge.
You can also batch cook and freeze sauces for later, keeping a smaller amount in the fridge for immediate use. Many sauces like pesto, tomato sauce and curry freeze well in ice cube trays, where you can pop a cube out for a quick burst of flavour to your dishes.
Homemade sauces can play a crucial role in the success of your meal – we encourage you to take the time to experiment with them for flavourful cooking!
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