How to Make Restaurant Quality Madeira Sauce in 20 Minutes

"A good base lightly flavored with Madeira will produce one of the greatest of all sauces." Raymond Sokolov, The Saucier's Apprentice

What Is Madeira Sauce?

Madeira sauce is a classic sauce in French cuisine named after the fortified wine from the island of Madeira. It is a rich and flavorful sauce typically served with beef, lamb, or game dishes.

To make Madeira sauce, you will need a base of beef or veal stock, Madeira wine, a variety of seasonings, and aromatic ingredients. The sauce is typically made by reducing the Madeira wine over medium heat until it thickens and becomes syrupy.

The beef or veal stock is added to the pan along with other ingredients, such as chopped shallots, minced garlic, or herbs. The sauce is then simmered until it has reduced and thickened to the desired consistency.

Madeira sauce has a bold and complex flavor, with the rich, nutty taste of the wine and the savory depth of the stock. It pairs particularly well with hearty meats such as beef tenderloin or lamb chops and is often served with roasted or grilled vegetables on the side.

In addition to being served with meats, Madeira sauce can also be used as a base for other dishes such as stews or braises. It can also be used as a topping for crostini or as a dipping sauce for appetizers.

Madeira sauce is a delicious and versatile sauce that adds depth and flavor to various dishes. Whether serving it with a classic steak or lamb chop or using it as a base for a hearty stew, Madeira sauce will impress and delight your guests.

Madeira sauce is a classic French brown sauce made with Madeira wine, peppercorns, and other essential ingredients.

It is a pepper sauce with Madeira wine added. It is served with beef and chicken, but in today's kitchens, you can serve it with almost anything.

A Little History Of Madeira Wine and Madeira Sauce

Let's start with Madeira, a wine from Portugal first made in the 1400s for export, mainly to France, where it was part of "their daily diet." The Portuguese used Maderia wine to hold up to a ship's constant motion.

Winemakers added a little cane sugar and distilled alcohol during fermentation, resulting in sweet to dry wine with a tannish color.

The old way of making classic Madeira sauce took many steps and an extremely long time.

Starting with a roux of butter and vegetables like onions, carrots, and celery; then add beef stock and other vegetables, including mushrooms and tomatoes, simmering, stirring, and skimming for hours, then pour through a fine strainer only to have the whole process start over again with the addition of Madeira wine.

When the winemakers were done, they ended up with an intensely flavorful Madeira sauce but may have been frustrated by the time invested in making the sauce.

Good news - I have a commercial demi-glace product recipe that cuts down the time to prepare this sauce to 20 minutes or less.

Madeira Wine

📖 Recipe

Print Recipe

4.34 from 3 votes

Madeira Sauce Recipe

A Great Sauce Featuring Madeira Wine

Prep Time5 minutes mins

Cook Time15 minutes mins

Total Time20 minutes mins

Course: Sauces

Cuisine: French

Keyword: Madeira, sauce

Servings: 1 cup

Ingredients

• 1 oz butter or ¼ stick
• 3 tablespoons shallots finely chopped
• ½ pound mushrooms white or crimini, sliced
• ½ teaspoon black cracked peppercorns
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 sprig fresh thyme ¼ teaspoon dried
• ¼ cup red wine
• ¾ cup Madeira wine
• 1 cup demi glace
• ¼ cup heavy cream optional
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

• Heat a medium-sized saucepan over medium heat. Once hot, add butter and then the shallots.
• Sauté the shallots until translucent, about 2 minutes.
• Add the mushrooms and cook until they release their moisture and become tender. This should take about 3 minutes.
• Add the peppercorns, thyme and bay leave to the saucepan and cook for 30 seconds to 1 minute.
• Now, add the red wine and reduce it by half. This could take 3 - 5 minutes.
• Add the Madeira wine and bring the sauce to a boil. When the wine comes to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer.
• Add the demi glace to the sauce and whisk until well blended.
• Add the optional heavy cream if you are using it. This will add some extra richness as well as calories.
• Reduce this sauce until it is thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon.
• Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.
• Serve over your favorite meats and poultry.

Demi Glace

When making great sauces at home that will wow your family and friends, stock reductions make all the difference. Whether it's a pan sauce using chicken, beef, or fish stock that's reduced in the pan or starting with a prepared beef/chicken glaze, if you want to create a classic "restaurant quality" sauce, you need to start with a quality stock or glaze.

Making an outstanding stock at home is relatively easy, and I urge you to start making your stocks. However, making a glaze like demi glace (veal/beef) or glace de poulet (chicken) is a lot more complicated and a job you may want to avoid tackling, or at least not that often.

If you want to learn more about demi-glace, what it is, and how to make it at home, check out this demi-glace link. There are links to a few commercial products I've tried, which are good alternatives to preparing them at home.

Alternative - Madeira Peppercorn Sauce

For those who love a nice "au Poivre" sauce or peppercorn sauce, you can quickly adapt the Madeira sauce recipe above to make your own. Substitute the ½ teaspoon of black cracked peppercorns with one teaspoon of drained green peppercorns in brine, coarsely chopped.

You can leave or exclude the mushrooms depending on your preferences, and now you have a delightful Madeira Peppercorn Sauce. This sauce goes incredibly well with game meats like elk or venison.

Some of My Favorite Sauce Recipes