The 5 Steak Sauces You Need to Know—and How to Make Them

When we want a sauce with our steak, we’re not reaching for A1.

Yeah, there are many times with a nice cut of beef, we like to keep it really simple and let the steak stand on its own. But there are plenty of times when enjoying a steak that a great sauce can lift the whole experience—a wonderful au poivre or béarnaise is one of the many things we love about a great steakhouse.

While the hit London restaurant Fallow isn’t exactly a steakhouse, but they know their way around a steak sauce there. “This is one of the backbones of the Fallow kitchen, the red wine sauce,” says chef and restaurant co-owner Jack Croft. “We go through about seven liters a day of this sauce.”

Jack Croft founded Fallow in London with fellow chef Will Murray after the duo came up together at Michelin two-starred Dinner by Heston Blumenthal. “Jack and I bonded over finding ways to use kitchen by-products, which we turned into staff meals and snacks,” Murray told Luxury London. “The biggest lesson I learned there was to always look for ways to innovate, even with the humblest of ingredients.” From there, the pair started doing pop-ups that featured their style of nose-to-tail cuisine, and after opening Fallow, they turned their kitchen into an open-source hub for culinary technique, filming handy guides to cooking like a pro chef at home.

In one of their recent videos, Croft takes the lead to break down the proper technique for five essential steak sauces: béarnaise, red wine sauce, chimichurri, peppercorn sauce (au poivre), and café de Paris butter. What’s great about this particular tutorial is that it shows a diverse set of accoutrements for you to try. The café de Paris butter is less a sauce that a flavor bomb of a compound butter; the chimichurri—a popular condiment in South America—is a great option for when you’re firing up the grill; the red wine sauce is a silky and elegant accompaniment; the au poivre is idea when a filet mignon is on the menu; and, of course, the béarnaise is great for more than just steak. “I always order bernaise as a default, because it’s also so good with chips,” Murray says.

Check out the video below and try one of these sauces the next time you’re cooking steak at home.