Skip to content
Sauces and Gravies

Bread Sauce

Bread sauce is milk infused with a clove-studded onion, bay and nutmeg, thickened with breadcrumbs: the creamy British sauce for roast turkey.
Recipe Bread Sauce
  • Difficulty Easy
  • Preparation 10 minutes
  • Cooking 20 minutes
  • Servings for 8 people

Bread sauce is a thick, pale, creamy sauce of milk infused with an onion studded with cloves, a bay leaf and peppercorns, thickened with fresh white breadcrumbs and finished with butter, a spoonful of cream and plenty of nutmeg. On the British Christmas plate it sits next to the roast turkey with the gravy and the cranberry sauce, and it goes just as well with roast chicken, pheasant and other game birds.

It is one of the oldest sauces in British cooking: in the Middle Ages cooks thickened their sauces with bread, and this one has come down almost unchanged as part of Christmas dinner. What makes it good is a long, gentle infusion, which fills the milk with the scent of clove and onion.

Ingredients for 8 people

Copy Ingredients List
Open in App

Method

  1. Push the cloves into the cut onion halves. Put them in a saucepan with the milk, the bay leaf, the peppercorns and a pinch of salt, and heat slowly until the milk steams and tiny bubbles appear around the edge; do not let it boil.
  2. Take the pan off the heat, cover it and leave the milk to infuse in a warm place for at least 1 hour, or up to 2 hours for a deeper flavor.
  3. Lift out the onion, bay leaf and peppercorns with a slotted spoon, or pour the milk through a sieve, and bring it back to a gentle simmer.
  4. Stir in the breadcrumbs and half the butter and cook over the lowest heat for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring often, until the crumbs have swollen and the sauce is thick and creamy but still soft enough to fall from the spoon.
  5. Just before serving, stir in the rest of the butter, the double cream and a generous grating of nutmeg, then taste and add more salt if needed; if it has thickened too much, loosen it with a little more milk. Serve it warm in a heated bowl or sauce boat, with a little more nutmeg grated on top. Finally, remember to download our App with exclusive content and fewer ads!

Variations and Alternatives

Many cooks add a blade of mace to the milk with the other spices. For a coarser, more rustic sauce, use torn stale bread instead of fine crumbs; for a stronger onion flavor, chop the infused onion and stir it back in. For a baked bread sauce, spoon the finished sauce into a buttered dish, dot with butter and bake at 200 °C (400 °F) for 20 minutes, until golden on top. Gluten-free bread works well.

Tips

Make the crumbs from day-old white bread with the crusts cut off: very fresh, soft bread turns gluey. Never let the milk boil hard, and keep the heat at its lowest while the crumbs swell. The sauce thickens as it stands, so stop cooking it when it is still soft and spoonable and loosen it with a little milk if needed. White peppercorns avoid dark specks, if you prefer a pure white sauce.

Storage

Covered with a piece of baking parchment pressed onto the surface, the sauce keeps in the fridge for up to 2 days; reheat it gently, stirring in a splash of milk. It also freezes without the cream for up to 1 month: thaw it overnight in the fridge, reheat it gently and stir in the cream at the end.

Comments