Creole Sauce, or Sauce Creole, is a Creole classic-tomatoes with lots of the Holy Trinity-a Creole and Cajun cooking staple comprised of yellow onions, bell peppers, and celery. Add some customary Louisiana spices and seasonings and a slow simmer and you have created a traditional Creole Sauce that will elevate just about anything to a Creole classic. Here’s Sweet Daddy D’s no-angst method to make this delicious sauce.
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Here’s What You Need
A Creole Sauce is a tomato-based sauce so we will get the tomatoes from a 15 ounce can Whole Tomatoes, plum or Roma are excellent, and some Tomato Sauce. Here are the other ingredients you will need.
Start with the Trinity and vegetables
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Other ingredients
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Herb and Spice Blend
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Here’s What You Do
First...you have a beer. No-angst cooking requires a proper start. Pop a top and sit down and read the recipe all the way through. Gather up your ingredients and your tools and get going. That's the mise en place, which simply means that you make sure you have what you need, ingredients and tools and cookware, then prep all the ingredients so that all you have to do is assemble the dish as you cook.
This recipe has quite a few ingredients, so get started chopping and measuring everything into small ramekins. Use a whole lemon-start by zesting it, then cut it in half. Juice one half and slice the other half into 3 or 4 slices. This dish can be prepared in a single dutch oven. Simple as that.
Start with the vegetables
In a heavy Dutch oven, melt the butter over medium heat until bubbling then add the Trinity and sauté until it starts to caramelize, which takes about 15 to 20 minutes.
Next, it's the aromatics: add the garlic and about half of the Herb and Spice Blend (not the bay leaves yet) and about ⅔ of the green onions. Mix well and sauté until you get the super fragrance of the garlic which will only take about 2 minutes. At this point, add in the AP flour and stir thoroughly, cooking it for about 2 to 3 minutes. Stir constantly so it does not stick.
Add the Liquids
The whole tomatoes go in next, crushing each tomato by hand as you add them to the dutch oven-this really is the fun part. Make sure to add the juice from the tomatoes and the tomato sauce. Stir this really well as it comes to a simmer, then add about half of the remaining Herb and Spice Blend, both bay leaves, the sugar and Worcestershire sauce. Stir it up.
Add in the lemon juice, lemon zest, lemon slices and ¾ cup of the stock (reserve the remaining stock). Mix well and bring back to a heavy simmer.
Let it cook
Lower the heat to a slight simmer and cook for 20 minutes uncovered, stirring often while it thickens. After 20 minutes, cover the dutch oven, turn the heat very low and continue to simmer for another 30 to 45 minutes, stirring often so it does not stick.
After 30 minutes, taste for seasoning and add more if needed. When it has reached the consistency that you like, turn off the heat and let it sit about 15 minutes uncovered. Then, give it a final stir, remove the bay leaves and lemon slices and serve over rice sprinkled with green onions on top.
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Hints and Tips
- Serve this sauce over rice to accompany just about any main dish, but it shines ladled over fried or baked fish, wild game such as rabbit, stuffed peppers of any kind, omelets and eggs and even jambalaya. Simmer it with shrimp or crawfish and serve that over rice. The possibilities are endless...let me hear how you serve it in the comments below.
- This sauce is thickened by blending flour into the butter, Trinity and other vegetables after they have sauteed for a while. If you were to start out by making a roux and then adding the vegetables, the outcome would be a stew where the roux would provide even more thickening and produce a different base of flavor.
- Many creole sauce recipes are described as quick and only cook the ingredients together for a few minutes. That’s fine and can produce a very good creole sauce. My recipe's longer cooking time gives the tomatoes and onions a chance to release their sweetness, melding their wonderful flavors together producing a richer sauce with more depth. But, if you're crunched for time (who isn't?) cut back on the cooking time.
- We are looking for a thick, smooth sauce that is still a little chunky, so remove the cover or leave the cover on the Dutch oven while it simmers, depending on how the thickening is coming along. If it gets too thick, add some of the reserved stock, if it's not thick enough simmer with the cover off longer.
- Many commercial creole seasonings and stocks contain salt, so keep that in mind when you add more salt. It's a good practice to taste it before adding any salt. Similar situation with the cayenne pepper. Cayenne pepper is great with tomato dishes if you like a little kick, but check out your Creole seasoning before you add too much. Lots of times the Creole seasoning can be pretty spicy on its own and may not need any extra oomph!
- It is always better to use stock instead of water. For general purposes, chicken stock is always good. If making this sauce to accompany crawfish, try to use crawfish stock; if accompanying shrimp, try to use shrimp stock, to keep it purely vegetarian, use vegetable stock.....you get the idea! You can also grab these commercial stocks from Amazon...it's actually what I use most of the time!
- Fresh tomatoes can certainly be substituted for canned. Use any variety of tomato that you like, but make sure they are VERY ripe and peel them first. To make up for the liquid in the can, you can add a small bit of water, extra stock or extra tomato sauce. If you don't have a favorite brand of canned tomatoes, this is what I used when I developed the recipe. There are lots of good ones out there and this is a very good one!
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Here are some other great recipes from Sweet Daddy D that will go well with Creole Sauce:
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Yeah You Right!
Sauce Creole
Here's What You Need
- 4 tablespoons Butter
- 1 medium Yellow Onions diced
- ½ Green Peppers diced
- 2 stalks Celery diced
- 4 cloves garlic chopped
- 1 bunch green onions
- 1 tablespoon all purpose flour
- 15 ounce Whole Tomatoes in juice
- ¼ cup Tomato Sauce
- Juice of ½ Lemon
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 2 teaspoons Worcestershire Sauce
- 2 tablespoons White Sugar
- 1 cup stock
Herb and Spice Blend
- 1 teaspoon Oregano
- 1 teaspoon Basil
- ½ teaspoon Thyme
- 1 tablespoon Creole seasoning
- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper optional
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
Here's What You Do
- Chop and measure all ingredients into small prep bowls. In preparing the lemon, start by zesting the lemon. Slice the lemon in half, juice one half and slice the other half into 3 or 4 slices.
- In a heavy Dutch oven, heat butter over medium-high heat until bubbling; add the trinity (yellow onions, bell peppers, and celery) and sauté for about 15 to 20 minutes until starting to caramelize.
- Add the garlic and about half of the Herb and Spice Blend (not the bay leaves yet) and about ⅔ of the green onions. Mix well and sauté until aromatic - about 2 minutes.
- Mix in the flour and stir thoroughly. Cook about 2 to 3 minutes stirring constantly so it does not stick.
- Add the tomatoes (and the juice), crushing each by hand as you add them. Add the tomato sauce and mix well. Bring to a simmer, add about half of the remaining Herb and Spice Blend, both bay leaves, the sugar and Worcestershire sauce. Mix well.
- Add in the lemon juice, lemon zest, lemon slices and ¾ cup of the stock (reserve the remaining stock). Mix well and bring back to a heavy simmer; lower the heat to a slight simmer and cook for 20 minutes uncovered, stirring often while it thickens.
- After 20 minutes, cover the dutch oven and continue to cook on low for another 30 to 45 minutes, stirring often so it does not stick. We are looking for a thick, smooth (but chunky) sauce, so remove the cover or leave the cover on, depending on how the thickening is coming along. If it gets too thick, add some of the reserved stock, if it's not thick enough simmer with the cover off.
- At this point taste for seasoning.
- Remove the bay leaves and lemon slices and serve over rice or whatever you are serving, sprinkled with green onions on top.
Roger
Ingredients include juice of 1/2 lemon and 1 teaspoon of lemon zest. Instructions show to add lemon juice and lemon slices (step 5), and to remove lemon slices (step 8), and there is no mention of lemon zest. Please clarify what is required.
Sweet Daddy D
Hey, Roger. I see that it is a little confusing the way I have written it. Here’s what you do: when you prep the lemon, first zest the lemon, then slice it in half, juice one half and slice the other half. Add all of those-zest, juice and slices in Step 5. Then later, remove the slices before you serve (step 8).
I hope this clarifies it; I will correct the instructions for clarity as soon as I can. Thanks for calling that out.