Sauce

Use this creamy sauce as a condiment for grilled meats or roasted vegetables, or even as a salad dressing.

This is a little bit like making a ranch dressing and putting it on pizza. Which can’t possibly be a bad thing.

The only trick to this uncooked sauce is finding good canned tomatoes.

Why we're loving EssieSpice's sauces and rubs.

Easy sauces you can throw together to make proteins, vegetables, or grains taste better.

We eat a lot of yogurt sauce around here.

Think of this as a spicy Green Goddess dressing.

This recipe makes a lot of ragù, but it freezes well and is worth having around. If making the gnocchi feels like a project, serve over polenta instead.

Warning: it's addictive.

This Suzette sauce recipe is great for crepes, regular pancakes, waffles, and French toast. Maple syrup can sit this one out.

Use dark chocolate for a less sweet finish in this recipe. Try spooning some over some freshly made crepes.

Hard cider is really wonderful to cook with: It adds a bit of sweetness, acidity, and a hint of apple. And the leftovers are great in an autumnal cocktail. Check out step-by-step photos here.

You can soak toasted mustard seeds for this recipe, but you'll get a similar pop of texture simply by using whole grain mustard.

Traditional Greek skordalia is mostly garlic and olive oil with some potato or nuts added to thicken it. We flipped the ratio in this recipe: more potato, less garlic. Serve as a dip, or thin out with lemon juice and olive oil and use as a sauce for fish.

You don’t need hours to simmer tomato sauce. This recipe shows you how to make an excellent one in 30 minutes, with 5 ingredients, in 1 pan, with very little effort.

Blanched almonds go into a blender with water and oil and come out as a luscious aioli. Because the nuts aren't toasted, the sauce doesn't actually taste very nutty. It's more decadent than yogurt, more subtle than mayo.

This chermoula sauce recipe is even better if it sits for a while to let the flavors meld.

An extra chile for this harissa recipe will play up the heat, and if you’re feeling confident, you can customize the mix of spices as well.

Other tender herbs such as cilantro, dill, and/or tarragon can be used instead for this salsa verde recipe. Though the breadcrumbs don’t stay crisp, they give body and subtle crunch to the sauce.

This all-star topper can gussy up anything: steak, roasted potatoes—even a citrus salad.

No French toast, waffle, biscuit, or oatmeal is complete without a syrup, jam, or compote to go along with it.

There are many different styles of barbecue and more than one kind of barbecue sauce. This one originated in Alabama, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll dip your fried chicken in it. This recipe is from Buxton Hall, one of the Hot 10, America's Best New Restaurants 2016.

To answer your question, yes, homemade is way better. This sauce pairs perfectly with Buxton Hall's Hushpuppies. Cook the collards until they completely surrender themselves to the rich, spicy, lip-smacking braising liquid. This recipe is from Buxton Hall, one of the Hot 10, America's Best New Restaurants 2016.

Like your desserts extra-salted? Just keep adding more and tasting the butterscotch until you reach your personal sweet-salty threshold.