A good sauce can take a dish from bland to spectacular, and with just a few tweaks you can create an endless variety of dishes. Here are some more sauces to add to your arsenal.


Earlier this year we highlighted five great sauces to learn how to make. Most of those were traditional French sauces that are considered to be the "mother" sauces from which all other sauces are derived (the omitted one, Hollandaise, is below). Still, with so many variations of sauces from around the world to enhance the foods we cook, we thought it worth pointing out even more common and versatile sauces to mix up your meals.


Hollandaise

Last time we mentioned a garlic white sauce, toum, which is a mayo-like sauce, but the "mother" of white sauces is Hollandaise. A lot usually goes into it, but as Lifehacker reader Collin Christopher pointed out, there's an easier Julia Child's method:

Add your yolks, lemon juice, salt, and pepper to a blender, then blend it until its all incorporated. Melt your butter until the foaming stops, and, while the butter is still very hot, slowly stream it into the running blender. The heat from the butter "cooks" the eggs gently in the same way a double boiler would. You might want to have a little more butter on hand because this can come out a bit thicker than traditional hollandaise. After the butter is done, throw in a pinch of dill, tarragon, cayenne, or whatever you like. Easy hollandaise without ending up with Popeye arms. :)

Hollandaise sauce, most commonly used in Eggs Benedict or paired with asparagus, can be turned into other sauces, such as Bearnaise sauce for steak, which Child demonstrates above (using vinegar instead of lemon juice and add herbs like shallot, chervil, peppercorn, and tarragon).

Barbecue Sauce

Barbecue sauce adds a distinctive flavor to your grilled meats and vegetables. You can upgrade bottled barbecue sauces and enjoy the convenience, or make your own from scratch. There are tons of barbecue sauce variations too, from sweet (brown sugar or honey) BBQ sauce to spicier versions. Here are a few to get you started:



A Soy-Based Asian Sauce

Many Asian cuisines use soy sauce as the base for their "master sauces." With it, you can make Chinese sweet and sour sauce, Japanese teriyaki sauce, Korean kalbi, and other sauces, dips, and broths—each with distinctive flavors based on the additional ingredients you add. There are endless possibilities, but knowing at least one of these sauces can add more variety to your meats, vegetables, and grains.


Curry

Curry describes a wide variety of dishes from around the world. While the word technically means "sauce," curry can be simply vegetable and/or meat dishes cooked with spices—with or without the gravy. Coconut milk, yogurt, and/or chili paste are often used to make the base of the curry sauce, while curry spices may include cumin, turmeric, mustard seed, and others, depending on the region and dish. It's beyond the scope of this article to cover all kinds of curry dishes, but sufice to say, there's lots of territory to explore!


Who said sauces need to be white, red, or brown? When you have fresh herbs or other greens available, throw them together into a sauce that could be great on anything. Argentinean chimichurri sauce is delightful spooned over steak or other meats, pesto sauce pairs well with pasta and other grains, and salsa verde adds zip to tacos and other Mexican foods.



Hot Sauce

Sure, you can buy bottled hot sauces, but as with barbecue and other types of sauces, making your own from fresh ingredients and exactly to your tasts is more satisfying. Hot sauces figure largely in a variety of cuisines.



Again, these are all just scratching the surface of the kinds of sauces you can make, but perfecting your own version of each category you like can open up a world of additional flavors. Bon appetit!

Photo by Jira Hera (Shutterstock), LoggaWiggler .