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Sauces & Dips

The part that makes the plate make sense. Everything from a chimichurri you'll remember to a hollandaise you'll stop fearing.

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Salsa Macha with guajillo chiles, ancho chiles and peanuts — Mexico recipe

🇲🇽MexicoMedium

Sauces and Dips

Salsa Macha

Salsa macha is a Mexican chili oil from Veracruz — dried chiles, raw peanuts, sesame seeds, and garlic fried in oil, then coarsely blended into a thick, chunky paste. The name likely comes from macho ('bold' or 'strong'), though some cooks trace it to machacar, the pounding motion used to crush ingredients in a molcajete. Active cooking takes about 25 minutes; the salsa then needs at least an hour of hands-off resting for the flavors to settle before it's ready to eat. It tastes smoky, nutty, and fruity from the dried chiles, with a heat that builds slowly rather than hitting all at once, and keeps for up to a week in the fridge (never store it at room temperature), tasting better after the first day. Makes about 400 g; a serving is about 2 heaped tablespoons (40 g).

25 min240 kcal10 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free

Satsebeli with tomatoes, walnuts and fresh cilantro — Georgia recipe

🇬🇪GeorgiaMedium

Sauces and Dips

Satsebeli

A Georgian tomato-and-walnut sauce whose name means for dunking. Ripe tomatoes are reduced and blended with walnuts, garlic, cilantro, basil, and Georgian spices like blue fenugreek into a tangy, pourable sauce served with grilled meat, potatoes, and bread.

30 min55 kcal12 serves

🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free⚡Quick

Sauce Mornay (Classic French Béchamel Cheese Sauce) with unsalted butter, all purpose flour and whole milk — France recipe

🇫🇷FranceMedium

Sauces and Dips

Sauce Mornay (Classic French Béchamel Cheese Sauce)

Sauce Mornay is the classic French cheese sauce — a béchamel enriched with grated Gruyère and Parmigiano-Reggiano. The name traces to either a 19th-century Parisian restaurant (Le Grand Véfour) or the Marquis de Mornay, the exact attribution still debated. Mornay is the workhorse of French haute cuisine: the base for cauliflower au gratin, eggs Mornay, sole Mornay, endives au jambon, fish gratins, cheese soufflé, and the cheesier version of croque monsieur. Silky, glossy, pale-cream — never bright yellow (that means the cheese broke). Vegetarian, ready in 20 minutes. Yields about 500 ml of sauce, serves 6 with vegetables, fish, eggs, or pasta.

20 min180 kcal6 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick

Spinach and Artichoke Dip with cream cheese, sour cream and spinach — USA recipe

🇺🇸USAMedium

Sauces and Dips

Spinach and Artichoke Dip

Hot, cheesy, and straightforward — this is the version that disappears first at any party. Cream cheese is the base, mozzarella provides the gooeyness, parmesan does the seasoning work, and sour cream keeps the whole thing from being too dense. The two non-negotiables: squeeze the frozen spinach until your hands ache, and let the cream cheese reach room temperature before you try to mix anything. Watery spinach ruins the texture. Cold cream cheese makes a lumpy mess. Everything else is flexible.

35 min290 kcal8 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy

Tahini Sauce with tahini, lemon and garlic — Israel recipe

🇮🇱IsraelEasy

Sauces and Dips

Tahini Sauce

Simple tahini sauce — sesame paste thinned with water, brightened with lemon and garlic. Five minutes, no cooking. The trick is adding water gradually until it goes from thick paste to pourable silk.

5 min80 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick🌱Vegan

Teriyaki Sauce with soy sauce, mirin and sake — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanEasy

Sauces and Dips

Teriyaki Sauce

A glossy, deeply savory-sweet glaze built from soy sauce, mirin, sake, and sugar, thickened with a cornstarch slurry until it coats a spoon. Homemade teriyaki takes ten minutes and tastes nothing like the bottled kind — the fresh garlic and ginger give it a brightness that disappears completely in shelf-stable versions. I keep a jar in the fridge and use it on everything from grilled chicken to roasted vegetables.

10 min60 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick

Tkemali with sour plums, fresh cilantro and fresh dill — Georgia recipe

🇬🇪GeorgiaMedium

Sauces and Dips

Tkemali

A Georgian sour plum sauce, the country's answer to ketchup: plums simmered soft, sieved smooth, and seasoned with garlic, chili, cilantro, dill, and mint. Tart and herbal, it is served with grilled meat, chicken, and potatoes.

40 min35 kcal12 serves

🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy

Toum with garlic and lemon juice — Lebanon recipe

🇱🇧LebanonEasy

Sauces and Dips

Toum

Toum is a Lebanese garlic sauce whipped into a fluffy white emulsion with just garlic, lemon juice, oil, and salt. It pairs with grilled chicken, shawarma, falafel, or roasted vegetables. The recipe makes about 500 g, and a serving is 2 tablespoons (about 30 g). Chill it for an hour before serving. Toum lives in the fridge only: use it within 4 days and freeze the rest in portions.

15 min195 kcal16 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick🌾Gluten-free

Tzatziki with yogurt, cucumber and dill — Greece recipe

🇬🇷GreeceEasy

Sauces and Dips

Tzatziki

Tzatziki (τζατζίκι, also written zaziki) is a cold Greek sauce of strained yogurt, grated cucumber, garlic, olive oil and dill. It is served as a meze with pita, or as the sauce for gyros and souvlaki. The secret is squeezing every drop of water out of the cucumber; skip that step and you get soup, not tzatziki. It takes 10 minutes to make and needs at least 30 minutes in the fridge before serving.

10 min118 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick🌾Gluten-free

Whipped Feta with Hot Honey and Pistachio with feta cheese, Greek yogurt and honey — Greece recipe

🇬🇷GreeceMedium

Sauces and Dips

Whipped Feta with Hot Honey and Pistachio

Whipped feta with hot honey and pistachio is a creamy salty-sweet mezze dip — block feta blended with Greek yogurt, lemon zest, and olive oil into a fluffy spread, then drizzled with chili-infused honey and topped with toasted pistachios. The contrast is the whole point: salty brined sheep's milk cheese against sweet floral honey with a slow chili burn, and crunchy pistachio against the silky base. It takes about 15 minutes of hands-on work in a food processor (plus 15 minutes for the honey to infuse and 30 minutes for the cheese to come to room temperature) and serves six on a mezze board with warm pita, crackers, or sliced pear. The hot honey is easy to make at home if you cannot find it in shops.

15 min230 kcal6 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick🌾Gluten-free

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