Seasoning sauces: a splash for added depth

Seasoning sauces are liquid condiments that you use sparingly to add salt, acidity, sweetness, or savory depth to a dish. Some are added to the pot while cooking, others only on the finished plate. This category includes fermented sauces like soy sauce and fish sauce, creamy sauces for burgers, salad and salmon, ready-made salad dressings, a fermented chili seasoning, and a gravy from the butcher shop.

Fermented: soy sauce, fish sauce, and lupin seasonings

Soy sauce is brewed from soybeans, grains, salt, and water. Over months, microorganisms break down proteins into amino acids, including glutamic acid, which provides the savory umami taste. The Japanese Shoyu style contains wheat in addition to soy; Tamari is made with little or no wheat. Fish sauce is produced when fish is fermented with plenty of salt and then pressed; in Southeast Asia, it is the base seasoning for many dishes, from Pho to Pad Thai.

You can identify brewed soy sauce by a short list of ingredients – the organic soy sauce from Genusskoarl lists only water, organic soybeans, organic wheat, and salt – and by information about how long it has been aged. The maturation time defines the color and depth of flavor.

Genusskoarl from the Weinviertel region applies this principle to local raw materials: the WienerWürze is aged from lupins and oats, the TirolerWürze additionally gets salt smoked over beech wood, and their fish sauce is made from Austrian trout and char.

Stewed, stirred, mixed

Gravy is the counterpart to fermentation: beef and pork bones and roasted vegetables are cooked and reduced for a long time until a dark, robust sauce remains. Creamy seasoning sauces like Caesar, Café de Paris, or Burger & Sandwich Sauce are emulsions of rapeseed oil and egg yolk – they belong cold on the plate. Sweet and savory sauces like Teriyaki combine soy sauce with sugar and ginger and become a glaze in the pan. And ready-made salad dressings save you the trouble of mixing: just shake and pour over the salad.

Our producers of seasoning sauces

Our top seller is the gravy from the Benz Feinkostmanufaktur, prepared at their butcher shop in Köngen and reduced for at least 24 hours, available in a 400g can for about four portions.

From Wajos in Dohr on the Moselle come the very popular Patatas Bravas sauce with bell pepper and garlic, the Umami sauce with red onions, ginger, and soy sauce, the Teriyaki sauce with lime peel, as well as Caesar, Café de Paris, mango-curry, and a dill-mustard sauce with whole mustard seeds and honey.

Genusskoarl from Wolkersdorf brews its organic soy sauce in the Shoyu style from Austrian organic soybeans and organic wheat and ferments its organic fish sauce from 74% trout and char from Decleva's Alpenfisch. The WienerWürze is a vegan alternative to soy sauce; the TirolerWürze uses smoke to replace bacon in lentils and goulash; the Schoarfe Würze adds Carolina Reaper chili to the lupin seasoning; the salad seasoning combines sour cherry vinegar with lupin seasoning. Mixed with oil in a 1:2 ratio, it makes a dressing for cabbage salad, beetroot, and lentils.

Lang Weinessig from the Southern Palatinate supplies ready-made salad dressings based on cold-pressed rapeseed oil, such as the honey-mustard salad dressing.

Seasoning sauces in everyday cooking

A vegetable stir-fry gets soy sauce first, then a tablespoon of Teriyaki shortly before the end for a glaze. For a curry or a Pho, one to two teaspoons of fish sauce are enough, which you can use instead of salt; in pasta sauces, the fish sauce from Genusskoarl replaces anchovy paste. Lentils with Spätzle or a pumpkin goulash become smoky with a splash of TirolerWürze, even without any meat. Caesar sauce goes over romaine lettuce with croutons and chicken, Patatas Bravas sauce with potato wedges and bratwurst, Umami sauce on a burger, and dill-mustard sauce with gravlax or pickled herring. You can season Chili con carne at the table with a few drops of Schoarfe Würze. On Sunday, pour the gravy over your roast pork, served with dumplings or Spätzle. And for Monday's potato salad, just give the honey-mustard dressing a quick shake.

Buying guide and storage

• Mind the salt: Soy sauce, fish sauce, and lupin seasonings are salty. Season with them first and only add more salt afterward if needed.
• Vegan or non-vegan: Soy sauce, WienerWürze, TirolerWürze, and Teriyaki are vegan; fish sauce, Caesar sauce, and egg-yolk-based sauces are not.
• Keep cold: Once opened, sauces containing egg belong in the refrigerator and should never be heated, otherwise the emulsion will break.
• Allergens: Depending on the sauce, they may contain soy, wheat, egg, milk, mustard, celery, fish, and sulfites – check the information on the product page.
• For trying: The seasonings from Genusskoarl are available in 100ml bottles, or 250ml for the well-stocked pantry.

More sauces and mustard

Seasoning sauces are part of Sauces, Ketchup & Co.. For grilling and fries, continue to Ketchup & Grilling Sauces featuring barbecue, curry, and fruit sauces; for snacks, head to Mustard featuring organic mustard from Leipzig and fruit mustard with pear, fig, or raspberry from Wiehl.

Order seasoning sauces online

From soy sauce for your wok to gravy for Sunday roast: at Leni & Hans you can order seasoning sauces online, and your package will be with you in 1–3 days.