What To Do If You Accidentally Broke Your Pan Sauce

A pan sauce is a quick and easy way to add some flair to your protein or pasta. Velvety smooth and glossy is the consistency you're shooting for. How frustrating, then, when you notice the contents of the pan looking greasy and curdled instead. Here's what to do if you accidentally break your pan sauce: Just add some water.

Adding water to a broken pan sauce helps it to re-emulsify by giving the fat more fluid in which to redistribute. Once you've added a splash of water, bring the sauce to a simmer and whisk vigorously to fully incorporate the elements back together until creamy and rich. If your sauce doesn't come back together immediately, continue adding water in small squirts and whisking. Sometimes it may require a bit more effort and time to re-emulsify properly. The water move should do the trick to save your broken sauce, so long as the milk solids haven't burned. Then, unfortunately, no amount of water will revive it.

It helps, also, to understand the basics of a pan sauce, how to make one, and why it might break in the first place. Pan sauces are a great way to leverage the drippings left behind by browned meat or sauteed vegetables. Step one is to give your ingredients a nice sear and allow the Maillard reaction to do its thing and brown the meat. Next, you'll want to deglaze your pan's fond, which is the French term for all that stuck-on goodness at the bottom of the pan. You can do this with wine, broth, water, or really any liquid, using a wooden utensil to scrape up the browned bits and as the sauce comes together in a simmer. Finally, throw in a pad or two of butter and stir until creamy and incorporated, finishing it off with some seasoning.

A broken sauce happens when the fat and liquid separate. To avoid breaking the sauce, you want to be on the lookout for over-reduction. This can happen when the heat is turned up too high or the sauce is exposed to the heat for too long. Essentially, the heat causes all the water in the sauce to evaporate, which means the fat droplets have nothing to suspend in. That's why the water trick is a great fix for a broken sauce situation; it replaces the evaporated moisture.