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Sauce

Lyonnaise Sauce

A sauce made with onions, butter, wine, vinegar, and clear half‑glaze, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Lyonnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Brown the minced onions lightly in the butter.

  2. Add the white wine and vinegar, and reduce the liquid almost entirely.

  3. Stir in the clear half-glaze and cook slowly for 30 minutes.

  4. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve, if desired.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide the aromatic base and sweetness as they brown in butter.
Butter
Carries the onions as they brown, adding richness and fat to the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma as it reduces, concentrating the flavour of the sauce.
Vinegar
Contributes sharp acidity that reduces with the wine to brighten the sauce.
Clear half-glaze
Forms the body of the sauce, giving savoury depth and a silky texture.

The step that matters

Reduce the wine and vinegar almost entirely. Reducing concentrates the acids and aromatics; if it is stopped too early, the sauce tastes thin and sharp. Cooking off most of the liquid before adding the glaze builds a balanced, intensely flavoured base.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, white wine, vinegar):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Capsicumfits less well
  4. Mustardfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, white wine, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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