What Is Demi Glace?

When it comes to French food, you have to have your sauces. There are five “mother” sauces in French food. Those sauces are tweaked and combined to make a nearly infinite number of other sauces, glazes, gravies, and other wet stuff that makes food better. One of the most famous sauces is the demi glace. What is demi glace? What is in a demi glace? How do you make demi glace? How do you use demi glace? Pardon my French, but let’s learn about demi glace!

What is demi glace?

A lot of people assume that demi glace is one of Demi Moore’s sisters. Those people are wrong and don’t understand how last name’s work. A demi glace is an extraordinarily rich brown sauce used in French cuisine. Demi glace is used as a standalone sauce and as an ingredient in other sauces. Glace, pronounced glass, is literally glaze or icing in French. It refers to a super thick, reduced stock. So, a demi glace would be a lighter, less concentrated glace. 

What’s in a demi glace?

What goes into this fancy French sauce? It’s basically just stock and another sauce! So many French sauces are a mother sauce mixed with other stuff. The French mother sauces are béchamel, velouté, espagnole, hollandaise, and tomato. Demi glace is made by combining espagnole sauce with a brown stock, then reducing. The brown stock is usually veal, but can also be beef and sometimes chicken. 

Okay so what is espagnole sauce? Espagnole is a basic brown sauce. It’s made with brown stock, tomato puree, and mirepoix (a mix of diced celery, onion, and carrots), and then thickened with a roux. So, that’s how you make espagnole, but how do you make demi glace? To make demi glace, take that espagnole sauce and mix it with equal parts brown stock, then reduce that by half. Now you’re a fancy French cook!

How to use demi glace? 

You’ve made your demi glace but now what are you going to do with it? Sauce some stuff up of course! Demi glace can be used as a sauce or added to other sauces. Soups and stews get added depth of flavor with a splash or two of demi glace. Almost any braised meat mix is improved by adding some demi glace to the braise just before serving. Both red wine sauce and a classic mushroom sauce start with a demi glace base. Or you can just spoon some demi glace over a nice hunk of meat. Pork chops, steak, and duck breast are all wonderful with a spoonful of demi glace over them. 

You can dilute the demi glace with a little hot water to make it a bit more saucy. Then, go to town pouring it over your favorite meat dish. Or you can be like me and just drink demi glace by itself. Please just do it. It’s lonely being the only demi glace drinker in my town.


About the Author

Will Morgan

Will Morgan, a freelance contributor to Sporked, is an L.A. based writer, actor, and sketch comedy guy. Originally from Houston, TX, he strongly believes in the superiority of breakfast tacos to breakfast burritos. Will traveled the world as one of those people that did yoyo shows at elementary school assemblies, always making a point to find local and regional foods to explore in whatever place he was, even in rinky-dink towns like Tilsonberg, ON. Will spends his birthdays at Benihana’s. Let him know if can make it.

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