mother sauce

noun

plural mother sauces

: a simple sauce that is often used as the base for other sauces

Known as a mother sauce, béchamel can be modified by simply adding cheese, preferably a hard cheese like Gruyere or Swiss. With that and a pinch of nutmeg, you have a mornay sauce.

—David Campiche

Any chef worth her salt can write a lengthy book on the French mother sauces. (There are lots of other mother sauces cooked in countries that are not-France, but that's another book).

—Julie Cross

Examples of mother sauce in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In the red pizza section find the Pisa Lisa made with mother sauce, provolone-mozzarella, picante peppers, Calabrese sausage, soppressata salami, prosciutto di Parma and spicy coppa. —Bahar Anooshahr, The Arizona Republic, 12 Feb. 2024

Word History

Etymology

translation of French sauce-mère

First Known Use

1892, in the meaning defined above