Also Called The Hunter's Sauce
I may be saying chasseur sauce wrong, but I pronounce it "(cha-SURE) sauce" and love the sound of it when I say it. Sort of like saying "Worcestershire sauce" or, as we say in our house, "whats-this-here-sauce."
Sauce Chasseur is the perfect sauce to serve with wild game, including rabbit, venison, and wildfowl, but it is also great on beef, pork, or chicken. Chasseur is the French word for "hunter," and thus where it received its name, Hunter's Sauce.
Chasseur Sauce History
If you believe what you read on the Internet (and I do in this case), Chasseur sauce was invented by the honorable French Duke Phillippe De Mornay back in the 1600s. He was the Governor of Saumur, a historic town in western France between the Loire and Thouet rivers.
If the name Mornay sounds familiar, you may be thinking of another classic French sauce called Mornay, a béchamel sauce with shredded Gruyere cheese added to it, also invented by the Duke. He was credited for inventing Béchamel sauce, sauce Lyonnaise and Porto sauce making him an extremely creative nobleman.
About Chasseur Sauce
Chasseur is a brown sauce made with demi-glace as a base with some combination of shallots, mushrooms, tomatoes, white wine, and herbs (usually parsley).
Legend has it hunters would forage for mushrooms on their way home from the hunt and add them to the sauce. Sounds logical.
Suppose you can't find quality demi-glace at your local markets. In that case, you can try reducing some beef stock and substituting that. Please don't use any powdered demi products you find in an envelope at some supermarkets. You will be disappointed.
Wild Mushrooms
If you don't have the opportunity to forage for wild mushrooms on your way home from work tonight or can't find any in your local supermarket, you can always substitute white button or cremini mushrooms.
And if you're not cooking any wild game like venison, maybe it's better to stay away from those wild mushrooms and stick with the cultivated ones. I was kidding.
📖 Recipe
Chasseur Sauce Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 10 ounces mushrooms sliced
- 1 shallot finely minced
- ½ cup tomato sauce or 1 ½ cups diced tomatoes
- ¾ cup dry white wine
- 2 tablespoons Cognac or brandy
- 1 cup demi glace
- 1 tablespoon fresh parsley minced
- salt & freshly ground pepper to taste
Instructions
- Heat a medium saucepan over medium heat, add 2 tablespoons of butter, and when hot, add the mushrooms.
- Saute the mushrooms until they release their liquids and begin to brown lightly.
- Add the minced shallot and cook for a minute or two until they soften.
- Add the tomato sauce or dice tomatoes along with the wine and Cognac and bring to a boil.
- Immediately reduce the heat to a simmer and continue cooking until most of the liquids have evaporated. This could take as much as 10 minutes.
- Add the demi-glace and fresh parsley and reduce the sauce for 5 minutes or until it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Add the remaining tablespoon of butter (mounting) to give the sauce an extra shine and richness.
- Taste and adjust seasonings with S&P.
Notes
Demi Glace
An essential ingredient when preparing this Chasseur sauce and not always easy to find, so I've provided a recipe for making your demi-glace.
I must warn you; demi glace is not the easiest recipe. It takes a lot of time and effort. However, if you take the time to make it at home, it's well worth the effort.
On my demi-glace recipe page, I offer some of these commercial products at the end of the recipe.
Some Top Commercial Demi Glace Sources at Amazon
If you don't want to make it at home, there are some excellent commercial alternatives. I've used them for almost 25 years now and always have them on hand. They are that good!
My Top Choices for Demi Glace
Online Sources: Demi Glace
For those of you who do not want to make demi glace at home.
Demi glace is the most important ingredient for making classic "restaurant quality" brown sauces. All the great French brown sauces use demi glace. But it can also be used in soups, stews and braises. It's something you can make at home but it takes a long, long time to do it right and if you make one mistake, it can easily be ruined. Lucky for us, there are now some great sources for commercial grade demi glace and I want to share a few with you now. Everyone has their preferences so I suggest you give each a try to find out which product you like best.Savory Choice's Demi Glace
Ready in minutes, Savory Choice beef demi glace allows home chefs to deliver impressive restaurant-quality meals quickly and cost-effectively. Professional chefs typically take at least 24 hours to prepare this traditional reduction sauce by simmering stock, vegetables, wine and spices to a velvety consistency.More Than Gourmet's Demi Glace Gold
One of my first commercial demi glace products and still one of my favorites. For almost 25 years, More Than Gourmet has been the gold standard for flavor and quality when it comes to sauces, stock, and soup. This product comes in 1 pound tubs and 1.5 ounce pucks and even bigger sizes if you are a commercial establishment. I like buying 6 of the pucks at a time unless I'm doing a big party and need the pounder.
Wenderton
It's actually pronounced shas-sir. That's my best translation anyway. I'm a French woman so I'm not just pulling it out of thin air, promise, lol.
Benoit
I'd say Sha-sûr is the correct pronunciation.... lol
ali alinaghian
Hi
thank u for this recipe im from Iran ad become so happy when i see your web site
G. Stephen Jones
thanks Ali
Rob Lubke
This sauce is lovely. I served it with schnitzel and brown butter gnudi for dinner tonight...but the author and I must disagree on the definition of demiglace. A cup if demiglace would make at least for cups of sauce...the product I know is so concentrated it looks like jello when cold. But thanks for a tomato and mushroom hunter sauce that rocks.
G. Stephen Jones
Hey Rob, thanks for your comments. To be more clear, I'm not talking about using a cup of demi glace reduction like More Than Gourmet's Demi Glace Gold. That would produce 4 - 5 cups of demi glace. I'm talking about using a cup of homemade demi glace or a cup of "reconstituted" commercial brand demi glace.
David from Glasgow
Hi,this sauce is fantastic, thank you posting this recipe.
I served this with a roasted point of rump. All the dinner guests
thoroughly enjoyed the meal. They all agreed it is as good as restaurant quality.
I used Knorr Demi glacé this produced a perfect base for all the ingredients
Would highly recommend.
G. Stephen Jones
Hi David, thanks for letting me know. Much appreciated.
Jeff Morrison
I will be using your Chasseur sauce recipe tomorrow for A dinner party featuring Berkshire Pork Cheeks. As a food service executive, specializing in high end center of the plate proteins I know first hard the arduous process of making Demi Glacé from scratch. You show some Demi Glacé products available via online purchase. Bonewerks by Culinarte is an exceptional Demi that offers various reduction percentages ranging from 35% up to 90% for their elite Demi.
Rhymes
Great recipe I made a very cheep version by swapping out the butter for duck fat left over from Sunday dinner shallots for spring onions I grow on my windowsill all year round so they are quite fat by this time of year. First time I tried making a demi glace time consuming yes but worth while and relived the boredom of covid confinement for the day have loads left over. I served it over two cheap Aldi wagu stakes with cheesy garlic mashed spuds and blackened African salad. Used the the remaining white wine with soda water and a couple of shots of grand mariner from the duck ala orange to make a jug of spritzers. Froze the glasses frosted the tops with caster sugar decorated with a slice of orange. Only problem I can see is Sunday nice duck dinner, Monday bubble and squeak, Tuesday wagu steak chasseur is going to make Wednesdays sausage egg and oven chips look well lame. Any ideas how I can jazz that up will be well appreciated. Big thank you for the inspiration though.
G. Stephen Jones
Rhymes, wow, great meals. Thanks for sharing them with me. And way to go making your own demi from scratch. Lot's of work but well worth the experience. As for Sausage egg and chips, serve it on a fancy plate with a good glass of wine and call it gourmet.