I like mixing various spices with olive oil to dip bread in. Literally just whatever catches my eye in the cabinet.

any time you use a pan to cook meat throw some onions, or whatever in with a little more oil, get them going, pour in wine, and cook till thick. ad a couple pates of butter to finish for extra gloss and richness, season to taste, serve

some of y’all have very loose concepts of ‘sauce’

Guajillo Sauce, many meals I cook I use this sauce.

• 6-10 dried Guajilo peppers, stems/seeds removed
• Half white onion
• 2-4 garlic cloves
• 2 whole tomatoes
• 2 spicy peppers of your choosing, Serrano/jalapeño
• 6ish cups of water

Boil the water in a large pot and add all ingredients. Simmer for 15-20 mins. Drain half the water out, either blend in a blender or use an immersion blender until smooth. Season with salt, pepper, and desired spices. Pass through a sieve if you’d like for further smoothness (I never do)

Made this last night, and poured it over a seared spoon roast (my once a year beef purchase) in the crock pot. Low for 6 hours, had the best shredded beef tacos.

You can see the sauce be made here: La Herencia de las Viudas YT

Sauces for what? A lot of sauces you can buy pre-made and are perfectly acceptable—also some sauces you would not normally make yourself, e.g. soy sauce.

Sauces as in dipping sauces, I normally use pre-made hot sauce.

You can also make a lot of passable pasta sauces very easily. One way is to fry up garlic, chilli, and any other aromatics you like in a pan. Add white wine. Add parsley. Add pasta water. Add spaghetti (or other pasta).

Another pasta sauce I like that’s very easy to make is just putting silken tofu and miso paste into a blender/food processor and blending until creamy smooth. There should not be any chunks; it should be completely smooth and creamy. If you see any lumps at all, keep blending—it will get smooth. That makes for a good creamy vegan sauce you can put on pasta or other things.

Make pasta of choice, and finely chopped garlic and a tablespoon of salted butter to the hot drained cooked pasta. Stir until butter is completely melted.

Ad pepper to taste, garnish with fresh grated Parmesan cheese and chopped chives.

Simple and amazing.

Fo and added treat add chopped mushrooms to butter and garlic, saute, then pour over cooked pasta, then add cheese and chives.

Equal parts soy sauce & water. Crushed black pepper, crushed hot pepper, grated ginger, sugar. Bring to boil, add ginger when off boil.

You can go extra with a crushed clove, 1 star anise petal to get some aromatics.

You can thicken it with a touch of rice flour or other flour.

Olive oil, grated parmesan cheese, black pepper.

Erős Pista (Hungarian paprika paste) or Sambal Oelek + a fuckton of freshly grated garlic + a pinch of sugar = surprisingly close Huy Fong Sriracha alternative (great if you boycott US products or if there is yet another shortage). Can be enhanced even further with a couple drops of liquid smoke.

Mayo + sriracha goes with everything, from sushi to fries.

Sriracha is life.

Butter sauce, grab a bunch of butter, melt it and pour.

I find gravy to be one of the easiest sauces to do quickly and with whatever I have on hand (1:1:8 ratio for fat, flour and liquid).

I made a brown sauce for poutine and some other potato dishes kind of like this the other day: melt butter at medium low heat in a small pot, say about 2 tbsp, add equal amount of flour by volume and fry until getting a little nutty. Whisk in broth or stock (I just use Better Than Bouillon) until consistency of thin gravy achieved (about a cup) and it begins to bubble. Add light and dark soy sauces for flavour and colour to taste. It’ll thicken as it cools.

Mayo and dill pickle relish (or chopped dill pickles and pickled jalapenos) is the best tartar sauce IMO.

Chipotle salsa - dump a can of chipotles en adobo into the food processor, press start, turn it off when they are smooth.

Black bean sauce. Dump a can of black beans in a pot with some of the chipotle salsa, heat them together, hit with immersion blender and then whisk in some sour cream.

If you have an abundance of basil (if you have a plant, you will have an abundance) pesto is easy.

Slightly more work but so easy and so good, sheet pan salsa, put tomatillos and fresh hot peppers on a sheet pan and broil them until soft and a little blackened, slide the whole mess into the food processor, season with salt, a little olive oil and vinegar and either cumin seeds or cilantro (you don’t need both), pulse until chopped up and combined.

I find vegan gravy so good for the amount of work too. Make a dark roux of oil and flour, mix soy sauce into water until it looks like diet coke for the broth, add it slowly into the hot roux while whisking, season with pepper, salt if needed, rosemary is good as are mushrooms, miso, but it’s plenty good on its own.

Alfredo sauce:

500 grams of heavy cream with salt to taste heated to boiling on medium heat. Boil for 3 minutes. Add 250 grams of shredded real parmesan (don’t use bagged or canned as the cellulose added may fuck up the consistency of the sauce). Turn off the heat and mix until fully melted. Let the sauce sit for 5-10 minutes before adding to 500 grams of pasta. Feeds 4.

I’ll mix mayo with pretty much anything. It’ll mostly work. Although I tried making garlic mayo by mixing mayo and some garlic paste: that was way too garlicy.

Honey mustard. Honey mixed with mustard to taste. Add mayo for extra richness.