**Be sure and check out this post where I am giving away a cookbook! Hurry, the drawing ends tomorrow, January 28th at midnight, EST.**
Hi there.
Whether it’s from friends or family or you, my faithful readers, not a week goes by that someone doesn’t ask me for some kitchen advice. In many cases, it winds up being the same questions over and over again.
So, in the spirit of efficiency and all that, I thought I’d put some of the most common of these questions into blog posts right here. Maybe my regular readers who haven’t yet asked a question will find the answer they’re looking for!
So, on to today’s Kitchen Rockstar question:
How do I thicken a sauce?
No one likes a watery, thin sauce. There are a lot of ways to thicken soups, sauces and gravies, but the easiest way is often to use cornstarch.
You’ll have to adjust the amount of cornstarch you are using based on how much sauce (or soup) you are making. I like to use about 1 tablespoon of cornstarch per cup of liquid I need to thicken. The thing to remember here is that cornstarch gets lumpy if you add it to hot liquids.
One of the very first labs I ever had in culinary school I was partnered with a girl who would eventually become my roomie and life-long friend, Wendy. Wendy didn’t know that cornstarch had to be dissolved in cold liquid and so she added it directly to the boiling sweet and sour sauce we were trying to make that day. Needless to say, it made a big mess of pink watery soup with white clumps, and I haven’t stopped teasing her about for 20 years.
So, unless you want to get teased relentlessly and end up with a gross mess, add the cornstarch to cold liquids. Start by putting the cornstarch in a small bowl and adding enough water to cover the cornstarch. Mix it really well until there are no lumps and then slowly pour it into the hot liquid you want to thicken while you stir. Keep stirring and it will thicken up. Your hot liquid will need to be boiling or close to boiling to make the cornstarch start thickening, so make sure it is hot enough or it won’t work at all.
I’m linking up to Works for Me Wednesday because using cornstarch to thicken my soups, sauces and gravies works for me! Click on over to We Are That Family to see what other great ideas you can learn!
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