Here's How to Thicken Your Sauce With a Quick Fix (2024)

FAQs

Here's How to Thicken Your Sauce With a Quick Fix? ›

Make a Butter-and-Flour Paste: Have butter at room temperature and stir and mash an equal amount of flour into it. Whisk a good amount of the paste into your simmering sauce and let it cook for a few minutes, adding more paste if needed until the desired consistency is achieved.

Use one tablespoon cornstarch mixed with one tablespoon cold water (aka a cornstarch slurry) for each cup of medium-thick sauce. Thoroughly mix the cornstarch and water together, then pour into your sauce. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly.

Use Flour and Water

Combine 2 tablespoons flour with every 1/4 cup cold water and whisk until smooth. Add the mixture to your sauce over medium heat, and continue to stir and cook until you've reached your desired consistency. Test with a spoon.

Egg yolks, arrowroot, tomato paste or butter can thicken sauce in place of flour or cornstarch.

Add about 1 tablespoon of cornflour per cup of sauce but don't dump it straight in or it will clump. Instead, make a mixture with equal parts cornflour and cold water and whisk this into your sauce.

The most readily available sauce-thickener is flour. For a too-thin sauce, try adding a slurry (equal parts flour and water, whisked together) or beurre manie (equal parts softened butter and flour, kneaded together to form a paste)—both are ideal thickeners for rich and creamy sauces, such as steak sauce recipes.

When to Keep the Lid Off. Cooking a soup, stew, or sauce uncovered allows water to evaporate, so if your goal is to reduce a sauce or thicken a soup, skip the lid. The longer you cook your dish, the more water that will evaporate and the thicker the liquid becomes—that means the flavors become more concentrated, too.

Sugar doesn't thicken in quite the same way as starch or fat, but it does make your sauce stickier, and getting your sauce to stick to the food is the entire point. Adding sugar to water creates a solution that is thicker than water, and further heating (boiling or simmering) makes it even thicker.

What is the healthiest thickening agent? ›

Easy-to-access alternatives are wheat flour, arrowroot flour, and rice flour. These are good alternatives to cornstarch because they are more nutritious and contain fewer carbohydrates and calories. Xanthan and guar gum are much stronger thickeners than cornstarch, but they can be harder to obtain and use.

At first, the liquid appears thin and watery, and as the water evaporates, it thickens nicely to coat each bit of meat. You can apply the same principle to any sauce reduction: Simmer the sauce in a sauce pot until it reaches your desired consistency.

Cornstarch. Cornstarch is the most common thickening agent used in the industry. It is mixed with water or juice and boiled to make fillings and to give a glossy semi-clear finish to products.

First, mix one tablespoon of cornstarch with one tablespoon of water to make a cornstarch slurry. Add the slurry directly to the spaghetti sauce as it's cooking on low heat. Stir continuously until the sauce reaches the desired consistency, and you'll be good to go.

To reduce in cooking, start by boiling your liquid in an uncovered pan and reducing the heat to a simmer. As it simmers, monitor the liquid closely until it reaches the consistency you desire. If you're having trouble getting your liquid to reduce, sprinkle in a few spoonfuls of a thickener, like cornstarch or flour.

When to Keep the Lid Off. Cooking a soup, stew, or sauce uncovered allows water to evaporate, so if your goal is to reduce a sauce or thicken a soup, skip the lid. The longer you cook your dish, the more water that will evaporate and the thicker the liquid becomes—that means the flavors become more concentrated, too.

Cornstarch: Make a slurry of half water, half cornstarch and whisk until smooth. Cornstarch is a powerful thickener, so start by whisking in no more than 1 tablespoon of the mixture per 2 cups of simmering sauce; stir and simmer for 2 minutes, check the thickness, and repeat with more slurry as needed.