In the culinary arts, the term "mother sauce" refers to any one of five basic sauces, which are the starting points for making various secondary sauces or "small sauces."

They're called mother sauces because each one is like the head of its own unique family.

A sauce is essentially a liquid plus some sort of thickening agent along with other flavoring ingredients. Each of the five mother sauces is made with a different liquid, and a different thickening agent—although three of the mother sauces are thickened with ​a roux, in each case the roux is cooked for a different amount of time to produce a lighter or darker color.

Here are the five mother sauces and show examples of some of the small sauces that can be made from each mother sauce.