Dating back to the early 1900s, cooks started using browning sauce to add flavor and color to their dinners. Browning and seasoning sauce is used as an additive for things like steak, gravy, vegetarian foods, burgers, and more.
Browning and seasoning sauce is a sauce that enhances the color and taste of other foods. It’s similar to gravy, but they are two different things. Browning and seasoning sauce is often an ingredient in gravy. It has a deep flavor with hints resembling of molasses.
Browning and seasoning sauce is most commonly an ingredient in soups and sauces. Its smoky flavor can enhance your food and it’s also often used as a coloring agent. Browning sauce can give a creamier texture and a deeper color to liquid foods. Sometimes cooks will put it on poultry or beef to give it an oven-roasted aesthetic.
Some like to use it with garlic sauce to give beef a perfect glaze and a nice enhancement to the flavor. The combination can help you bring home cooked meals to life, especially if you’re trying to replicate your favorite takeout food.
Using too much browning and seasoning sauce can take away from the flavor of your food and add bitterness, so it must be measured carefully. A teaspoon of it has no fat, ten mg of sodium and about 15 calories. A little goes a long way when using browning and seasoning sauce to give a richer color to your food.
Browning sauce should be easily found in most grocery stores, near the gravy mixes. If you don’t see it at your local stores, it can also be bought online. The most popular brands of browning and seasoning sauce are Kitchen Bouquet and Gravy Master.
If you are unable to find any browning and seasoning sauce, it can often be substituted with Worcestershire, soy sauce, or molasses. But, if you’re up for a DIY and like making things from scratch you can also make your own browning and seasoning sauce.
Making Your Own Browning and Seasoning Sauce
Homemade browning sauce can be a fun project. It also avoids the added preservatives that come with store-bought browning sauce. Thankfully, the process of making your own browning and seasoning sauce is relatively simple, albeit more time consuming than buying it at the store.
Ingredients
You can make your own browning and seasoning sauce with just a few ingredients. This recipe makes approximately one cup of browning sauce. You will need:
One cup of cane sugar
½ cup hot water
One teaspoon of salt
The procedure for making homemade browning and seasoning sauce goes as follows:
Melt the sugar. Heat sugar on medium heat using a cast-iron skillet or a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Then, stir slowly and frequently until the sugar melts and becomes syrup like. Continue stirring the syrup until it becomes a very dark brown color. Turn down the heat if it starts to smoke.
Add the water carefully. Once you see that the sugar has become dark brown (but not black), it’s a good time to remove the pan from heat. Add boiling water one tablespoon at a time. The pan is likely to steam, so be careful not to burn your hands. Stir after each addition of water until the entirety of the half cup is in the mixture.
After all the water has been added, it’s time to add the salt to your mixture. Stir in the salt and allow the mixture to cool.
Once your browning and seasoning sauce has cooled, pour it into an airtight container. Then, it can be stored in the refrigerator for as long as six months.
Browning and seasoning sauce is used to add a deeper color to dishes like gravy and meats. A little goes a long way, and it can usually be found in grocery stores near the gravy powder. You can also make your own browning and seasoning sauce. It is a perfect addition to many dinners.
