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Soubise Sauce

A French sauce made from onions, milk, white sauce, cream, sugar, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Soubise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the onion purée

  1. Peel and slice the onions.

  2. Boil the onions in the milk until tender.

  3. Press out the milk and rub the onions through a fine sieve.

Finish the sauce

  1. Combine the onions with the white sauce in a saucepan and reduce to half the quantity.

  2. Stir in the cream, pepper, salt, and castor sugar.

  3. The sauce is now ready for use.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Break down into a smooth purée that gives the sauce its body and sweet flavour.
Milk
Gently cooks the onions until tender and softens their sharp edge.
White sauce
Provides the thick base that the onion purée is combined with and reduced into.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Reduce the onion and white sauce to half. Simmering evaporates water and concentrates flavour and body. Stopping too early leaves the sauce thin and bland, while overcooking can scorch the sugars in the onions.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sauce, cream, pepper, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sauce, cream, pepper, sugar. 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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