I’ve got a bit of a chip on my shoulder, and I’m going to deliver it with the subtlety of a battering ram. No, I’m not just here to complain—I promise I have something useful to say. Ready? In a lot of cooking (certainly not all cooking; probably not even most cooking), sauce gets “misused.”

“What do you mean?” asks Uncle Julian, who only eats his food covered in ketchup.

It’s simple: the biggest sauce mistake I see is that we use it just to cover up mediocre food.

In other words, sometimes we make crappy food, but it’s easy to forgive ourselves when we smother it in some sort of syrup. Right?

Example: ketchup never appeared on a cheeseburger until McDonald’s became a national franchise and they were trying to find a way to appeal to kids. Solution? Cover it in sugar. Now ketchup is a staple on burgers. Despite that, you rarely find ketchup on an expensive burger. Why is that? Because it covers up taste. Most joints use ketchup to mask their subpar burgers, but professionals want you to actually taste the meat.

With all this being said, I’m not against ketchup in principle. In fact, I have ketchup on burgers all the time and am no stranger to saucy coverups. In fact, using sauce as a bit of a crutch is mandatory sometimes, like when you simply don’t have access to the quality ingredients you want but still want your meal to satisfy that flavor itch. However, assuming I have access to some quality (albeit on a budget), and I have some time scraped out to really cook, that’s when I put on my fancy home chef outfit and pretend like I’m Guy Fieri’s evil twin. At times like that, we think about saucing differently.

So how do the professionals think about sauce? I’ll give you some ideas.

Rule One: Make Good Food

This isn’t about only sourcing your beef from local forms via the neighborhood butcher. While sourcing is a big deal, this rule is more about asking yourself:

“What if I made this food without the sauce? Would it still be good? How can I make it still good?”

Once you’ve at the point where your food is amazing without the sauce, just imagine how it’ll be after you add good sauce. Flavor town, baby. Here’s why this matters:

• Foundational Excellence: A bland chicken breast is still a bland chicken breast, even if you drown it in a gallon of hollandaise. On the flip side, a beautifully roasted chicken thigh with crispy skin, seasoned thoughtfully, can hold its own even without a single drop of sauce.
• Avoiding Dependency: If the sauce is doing all the heavy lifting, it’s like dressing up a cardboard box in a silk ribbon. Sure, it looks nice, but peel that ribbon away, and it’s still cardboard.
• Skill Development: Learning to make ingredients taste great without a sauce means you’re honing your basic cooking skills, like seasoning, searing, roasting, and braising. Mastery at this level sets you free to experiment with sauces creatively later.

I’m not pushing anything crazy here. I just like to focus on the fundamentals while I cook and ensure balance in my meal. That’s a good segue to the next rule.

Rule Two: Highlight Your Awesomeness

The basic idea here is that you don’t just make good food, but that you know your food is good. It’s the difference between showing up at a party in a rumpled skirt and trying to cover it up with a bunch of makeup versus showing up in a perfectly tailored suit that is highlighted by a modest pocket square.

How do we do this? Consider the following:

• Demonstrate Skill: Crafting a smooth hollandaise, a glossy reduction, or an airy emulsion isn’t just tasty—it’s a flex. It tells people you know your stuff. When I want people to bow before me, I always include a homemade barbecue sauce.
• Confidence > Complexity: Amateurs often overcomplicate. They think more is better, throwing layers of sauce at a dish to hide flaws. Pros know that less is more. The best burger I’ve ever had was decked out in nothing more than mustard.
• Show Restraint: The real artistry lies in balance. It’s not about throwing ten ingredients into a blender and hoping for the best. It’s about thoughtful choices that elevate the dish without overshadowing it. Even a professional loves a squirt of ketchup if it’s delivered at the right time and for the right reason.

In summary, don’t make your sauce work harder than you do. Be the star of your kitchen, not just the guy with a fancy condiment collection. Now go make something amazing.

(By the way, how was this article? Do you wish it went more in depth, or was this just right? Let me know in the comments.)