Sauces: your flavour passport to menu extension

As we head into the cooler months, rich, warming sauces are a terrific way to add more flavour to your dishes and thereby extend your menu for winter. At the same time, you shouldn’t overlook the wider applicability of sauces, such as in cold salads and sweet dishes – all year round, sauces are the perfect flavour passport to bring a wider variety of taste sensations to your customers. To find out more about what’s trending in sauces, we spoke to three chefs who have their fingers on the pulse of the market.

“Sauces are crazy right now,” says Trippas White Group Executive Chef George Diamond, “and the availability of what’s out there from manufacturers on the commercial market is huge, especially when it comes to American barbecue style.” George says those sauces are generating a lot of heat – and he means both in terms of their popularity on the menu, and on customers’ tastebuds!

“Flavours like chipotle, jalapeno, hot mustard, smoked paprika, harissa – there’s a real trend to heat at the moment. This has filtered down to retail too, currently you can see about 30 different types of barbecue sauces on supermarket shelves.”

George says the smart foodservice professional’s approach is to make a mother sauce from which you can then create a whole range of variations with the addition of extra ingredients. “This approach opens up so many different opportunities to extend the menu for your diners,” he explains. “You can take something as simple as a hollandaise and add a tomato concasse so it then becomes a choron. Hollandaise is also the mother sauce for bearnaise, but if you use mint instead of tarragon you can turn a hollandaise into a paloise, which is particularly suitable for serving with lamb. As long as you understand the classic fundamentals of cookery, you can use them to develop a range of different sauces. The list is endless.”

He also emphasises that today’s customers are more health-focused than ever, so it’s important to focus on nutritional values as opposed to pure indulgence. “Making sure you are at least offering low sodium options in your sauces is very important. One sauce we’re seeing a great deal of on the menu right now is kimchi – it has those strong, fermented flavours but it’s also relatively low in sodium. Kimchi comes from a Korean dish and Asian flavour profiles are certainly very popular right now – you can look to Thai and Vietnamese cuisines for some distinctive spices and great flavours which will bring a lot more diversity to your menu.”

Liquid marinades to complement serving sauces

Chef Adam Moore concurs with George that American barbecue style with its distinctive flavours is trending high on the menu, adding that liquid marinades are being used to enhance meat flavours during the cooking process as a complement to serving sauces. “White Mop sauce is a marinade made with vinegars, peppers and sugars and it’s ideal for briskets and caramelised edges to the meat. It’s so named because you actually use a mop to apply the marinade to the meat.”

Adam adds the current approach is to use more particulates, ie large chunks, within sauces – “this gives you more texture and mouthfeel. For example, big chunks of garlic. We’re seeing more garlic-based sauces, more buttermilk, making a white roux and adding more inclusions within that. We’re seeing more use of ingredients such as black garlic paste, which is quite chunky, with base sauces like barbecue or tomato. All those big, bold flavours are really resonating with customers at the moment.

“I’m also seeing fusion style sauces, for example taking Jamaican Jerk which is a spicy seasoning made from cumin, nutmeg, allspice, smoked paprika and cinnamon, but putting it with a more barbecue style sauce to make it more appealing for the mass market. For a chunkier approach, some chefs are adding pineapple pieces to rum and brown sugar to make a Jamaican style sauce.”

Echoing George’s comments about Asian flavours, Adam says “Korean Bulgogi style is also coming more into the mainstream – Korean and Japanese are big flavour profiles right now.”  Bulgogi literally translates as fire meat (ie barbecue, referring to the cooking style as opposed to the level of heat) and is typically made with beef marinated in sweet soy, sesame and garlic. 

Other examples Adam cites are using the aforementioned kimchi (using made with garlic, ginger, sriracha chilli, golden castor sugar and rice vinegar) added to a tomato sauce and serving atop an Asian dish such as Japanese style okonomiyaki (savoury pancakes). “Kimchi can also be added to mayonnaise to give it an extra depth of flavour.”

Enhancing sauces with flavoured beverages is another innovation Adam is currently seeing a lot of on the menu. “From American style barbecue flavoured with colas, to alcohol infusion in sauces, such as using a Bloody Mary as a sauce base rather than a cocktail,” he says. “Bourbon and whisky can be used to bring out smoky and umami flavour notes in meat.

“On the more classic side, we're also seeing a big revolution in French style sauces coming back with a lot more refinement in the approach, such as in a garlic jus. Chefs are pretty much going back to basics, using really good base sauces that enhance the flavour of the protein and vegies.

“We’re even seeing more prevalence of dipping sauces served with no protein at all, but rather a carb, for example a flatbread.”

It’s all about full-on flavour

Corporate Executive Chef Markus Werner at Delaware North Australia says when it comes to contemporary sauces, it’s all about full-on flavour. “We’re adding more spices, blending them into sauces, we’re using lots of garlic, kimchi, chilli – anything with pickling is always good, but not your typical gherkins. Instead just go wild – add some zucchini, some eggplant, go a little different!:

Markus also says healthier options are trending strong, and for that reason recommends making house sauces from scratch ingredients where possible. He adds that multiple sauces are a great option to keep customers engaged:

“You can serve a creamy flavour on top the something sharp and a little tangy on the bottom, or the reverse. Just make sure they’re flavour-packed! Even with something as simple as chips, people are asking for other condiments beyond just the basic tomato sauce although it will never go away.

“Truffles are coming back strong right now, as are the bisque flavours of seafood sauces, and even caviar is popular again. It’s not unusual anymore to spend a bit of money on your sauces and get some good flavours through – what your customers want is food that’s tasty, appealing, value for money and above all flavoursome.”