11 Sauces Deeply Rooted In Southern History

Sauces are a defining feature of many cuisines — mention Chinese cooking, and soy sauce is one of the first items that comes to mind. And few people can envision Italian cuisine without thinking about a hearty Bolognese sauce, or Mexican cuisine without its saucy enchiladas and stews. We can think of sauces as the concentrated essence of a cuisine — characteristic local ingredients prepared in traditional ways to suit local palates.

The cooking of the American South features numerous sauces, each with its unique flavor profile and history. They range from sweet to tangy to hearty, and from famed local specialties to little-known everyday pleasures enjoyed mostly at home. And each reflects a facet of the South's complex history — its mix of Black, European, and Indigenous populations, and its history of farming and trade. While some of these sauces are familiar to diners across the country, others are little known outside the South — which is all the more reason to give them to try.

Go into any diner or hotel breakfast in the South, and you're almost sure to find biscuits and gravy on offer. And the gravy will almost certainly be a thick white sauce generously studded with crumbles of browned sausage. To the uninitiated, sausage gravy looks far from appetizing — its grayish, goopy, and lumpy — but don't let that put you off. Once you taste it — especially if it contains a generous portion of good-quality sausage — you'll understand why it's a favorite breakfast in the South.

The homely look of sausage gravy reflects its equally homely history: It evolved as an easy, calorie-dense way to feed lumber workers in southern Appalachia. Made with cheap ingredients everyone always had on hand — sausage, milk, flour, and drippings from the cooked sausage — it was also an affordable way to fill up. It had another advantage as well: It made everyday biscuits a lot more palatable. (In the days before chemical leavenings such as baking powder, homemade biscuits were often dry and tough.) Of course, sausage gravy is even better on today's soft, fluffy biscuits — and it still makes a fantastic breakfast or brunch on a chilly morning.

This quintessentially Southern sauce not only has an odd name, but an odd set of ingredients. At its most basic, it's a runny mixture of country ham drippings and black coffee. It's unclear who came up with the idea of this mixture or when, but at some point, a cook frying up a slice of country ham (saltier and gamier than regular boiled ham) decided to deglaze the pan with some black coffee. The mixture of salty drippings and coffee proved to be a perfect complement for ham and a flavorful topping for biscuits or grits.

The origins of the name red-eye gravy are just as murky as its history. One possible story is the sauce is named for its appearance: The oily, reddish drippings and coffee, like the oil and vinegar in a vinaigrette, separate when left alone. This means a bowl of red-eye gravy often takes on the appearance of a reddish eye (the drippings) with a black coffee pupil in the middle. Another legend states that during his military service prior to his presidency, Andrew Jackson commanded a clearly hung-over camp cook to make him ham gravy as red as his eyes. Some modern cooks have refined the recipe by adding a roux to create a smoother sauce that doesn't separate — either version is well worth a try.

Believe it or not, Southern barbecue sauce comes in colors other than bright red. Indeed, the sweet-tangy tomato-based sauces most of us associate with Southern barbecue are a fairly modern development, emerging only at the beginning of the 20^th century. (The earliest barbecue sauces used from the U.S., borrowed from African traditions, consisted of a simple but punchy mixture of lime juice and hot peppers.)

Later cooks and pitmasters continued to create their own unique sauces, some of which have become classics in their own right. Among these is Alabama-style white barbecue sauce, which gets its color and richness from mayonnaise and its punch from vinegar and spices. It dates back to the 1920s, when Alabama pitmaster Bob Gibson, who specialized in pit-cooked whole chickens and pork shoulders, developed the sauce to keep his whole chickens moist after cooking. Today, it's become a regional favorite, and bottled versions of his sauce are available throughout the Southeast. It's still a classic accompaniment to smoky grilled chicken, and cooks in the region have embraced novel uses for it as well, such as serving it with grilled carrots.

Another barbecue sauce that predates the familiar red stuff is Carolina Gold sauce, or mustard sauce. As its name suggests, it's distinctly yellow from the mustard, and gets its combination of spicy, tangy, and savory flavors from vinegar, brown sugar, and spices such as garlic, onion powder, and cayenne. It's a lighter, punchier alternative to standard tomato-based barbecue sauces, and a great complement to rich meats such as pulled pork.

The sauce has its roots in South Carolina, which in the late 18th century invited German immigrants to settle in the then-territory. Many took up the offer and brought their tradition of mustard-based sauces with them. Upon arriving, the German settlers took up farming and embraced the local tradition of barbecue while adding their own special touches — including their own sauce. Today, descendants of these settlers still run barbecue restaurants featuring Carolina Gold sauce, some of which are destination stops for serious barbecue aficionados.

A close relative to Thousand Island dressing, comeback sauce is so beloved in its native Mississippi that it's the centerpiece of a common appetizer — a bowl of the sauce with saltines for dipping. Like Thousand Island, it's a creamy mayonnaise-based concoction that gets its sweetness and color from ketchup. But that's where the similarities end: Comeback sauce gets its own special kick from chili sauce, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and grated onion and garlic.

This spicy condiment was the invention of Greek immigrants, who first came to Mississippi for jobs in the region's steel and mining industries and later gravitated to running restaurants. It's unclear exactly which restaurant invented it or when, but it first appeared around the end of the 1930s and restaurants across the state eagerly adopted their own versions of it. Today, it's popular as a dipping sauce for fried foods as well as a topping for sandwiches and burgers. And its name speaks to its deliciousness — once you've had some, you'll want to come back for more.

A specialty of the Gulf Coast, Jezebel sauce is as intriguingly racy as its biblical namesake. A mixture of apple jelly, pineapple preserves, horseradish, pepper, and dry mustard, it seduces you with sweetness before delivering a seriously spicy punch. Like many homespun favorites, its exact origins are unclear, but it first started to appear in community cookbooks in the 1950s. It's easy to see why home cooks took to it — it's not only easy to whip together, but gets better the longer it sits in the fridge, making it a convenient way to liven up a meal.

It's also surprisingly versatile. It makes a flavorful glaze for ham or pork and a lively marinade for meat or poultry, as well as a delightfully savory alternative to jam to accompany biscuits or toast. You can also use it in place of grape jelly for a spiced-up version of classic cocktail meatballs. It's also a great way to elevate a charcuterie board. And a classic way to showcase it is to slather it over a block of cream cheese and serve it with crackers for an easy and flavorful appetizer.

The southernmost outpost of the American South, Key West, Florida has a distinctly tropical culture and climate that set it apart from the rest of the South — the vibe is definitely more Margaritaville than Steel Magnolias. And this extends to its food culture. When you visit Key West, you'll not only have the opportunity to visit Ernest Hemingway's house and enjoy a great sport fishing and bar scene, you'll also experience the region's distinctive culinary specialties. Besides their justifiably famous key lime pie, you can taste lesser-known local specialties such as conch fritters and their natural accompaniment, Old Sour.

Like many things in the Keys, Old Sour has its roots in the Caribbean (the sauce is also popular in the Bahamas). It's a bright mixture of key lime juice fermented with salt, and sometimes bird chiles and allspice. Fermentation not only preserves the sauce, but gives the sharp, salty, citrusy mixture its distinctive flavor. In the Keys, locals sprinkle Old Sour over their seafood rather than squeezing over a lemon wedge. They also splash a few drops into conch chowder, another local specialty. In addition, it makes a refreshing substitute for vinegar in salad dressings and other preparations.

Henry Bain, the onetime head waiter of the Pendennis Club in Louisville, Kentucky, probably never planned to immortalize his name with a sauce. But he saw a need for a flavorful accompaniment to the wild game club members brought in after a day of hunting. Fresh and tasty as it was, it could also have a strong flavor and aroma that needed something to balance it. To complement steaks and game, Bain devised a dark, rich sauce with sweet and tangy notes.

To say it was a hit would be an understatement. It became so sought after that it became a recruitment tool for the club, which would entice potential members by inviting them for a meal at the club with the famous sauce. Henry Bain's original recipe remains a closely guarded secret, but in 2009, the club began to sell it in bottles for anyone to enjoy. And copycat recipes abound, most containing ingredients such as steak sauce, chutney, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and pickled walnuts.

You might have been raised to believe that gravy is always savory and responsible adults don't eat chocolate for breakfast. In parts of Appalachia and the South, neither of these are true — chocolate gravy is indeed a thing. This thick, warm version of chocolate sauce is a beloved topping for biscuits — you can think of it as a Southern answer to French pain au chocolat. Like other gravies, it starts with a flour-based roux, but the chocolate (usually in the form of cocoa powder) sends it in a sweet rather than savory direction.

The origins of this homey favorite are unclear. One possibility is it has Spanish roots — traders from Spanish Louisiana enjoyed hot chocolate for drinking, and settlers in the Tennessee Valley adapted their chocolate habit to suit their own tastes. A simpler story is that thrifty cooks simply invented it with ingredients they had available — milk, flour, sugar, and cocoa powder. Whatever its origins, this simple but tasty concoction has somehow managed to escape the notice of eaters outside the South. This is too bad — because it's well worth a try.

Southerners love their tomatoes. In the summer, gardeners and their families wax rhapsodic about tomato sandwiches, humble hot-weather treats of store-bought white bread, mayonnaise, and sliced, fresh tomatoes, preferably straight off the vine. Canned tomatoes get a lot of love, too. Because tomatoes grow so easily and abundantly in the South, cooks historically had enough to preserve and enjoy year-round in stews, sauces, and other dishes.

Among the favorite ways to showcase canned tomatoes is tomato gravy, a savory, creamy sauce that brightens up breakfast dishes such as grits, eggs, and biscuits, and serves as a flavorful topping for burgers and meatloaf. Like other Southern gravy types, it starts with a white roux (flour or cornmeal lightly fried in bacon fat or other oil). The main liquid can be stock or milk. The star of the show, of course, is a good quantity of chopped canned tomatoes, which add a tangy umami depth as well as a pretty red color. (If you have ready access to fresh tomatoes, they make the gravy even better.) Tomato gravy began as a thrifty way to stretch one's tomato supply — but has since evolved into a beloved culinary tradition in its own right.

Louisiana is home to some of the most distinctive and well-loved culinary traditions of the American South. Its geography, along with its unique mix of French, Spanish, Black, Native, German, and English populations, have made the state into a vibrant culinary incubator. Today, no sane visitor to the state would think of spending time there without sampling local favorites such as gumbo, po-boys, or fluffy beignets.

Among the features that make Louisiana's Cajun and Creole cuisines distinctive is their unique sauces. A prototypical sauce of the region is Creole sauce, a vibrant blend of tomatoes, celery, onions, bell peppers, garlic, and cayenne for extra kick. Some versions add ingredients such as Worcestershire sauce or hot sauce for extra oomph. These ingredients — all easily available to Louisiana cooks — come together into a bright, colorful sauce that's one of the region's signature flavors. It's a great match for the state's abundant seafood, and is also great on grilled meats and po-boys.