Flavoring Cooking Sauces

The term "cooking sauce" includes sauces prepared with other ingredients for the finished application. Monica Hashimoto, food technologist for savory applications, Ottens Flavors, Philadelphia, describes the increased appeal of these sauces: "As consumers work longer hours and have less time or desire to cook an elaborate meal at dinner, sauces can be used to enhance the flavor of meat that has been reheated in the microwave or briefly grilled to provide the consumer with a richer dining experience."

The nature of these sauces is that they will be diluted by a substrate. For example, a stir-fry sauce will need to have enough intensity to blend with vegetables, meat or tofu, and rice or noodles and still make eating the dish an exciting experience. As we continue to see products marketed for bold flavor, we increase our expectation of what sauces will deliver.

The 2003 "McCormick Flavor Forecast," published by McCormick & Company, Hunt Valley, MD, identifies 12 flavors that will address the demand for strong and ethnic flavors. Not surprising, spices dominate this list and include bay leaf, turmeric, cinnamon, pepper and coriander. Given that a cooking sauce needs to deliver the impact of the spice flavor, the question is: How can spices be selected and used to create an exciting eating experience?

On its website, (www.astaspice.org) the American Spice Trade Association (ASTA), Washington, D.C., provides a good description of spices and their components available to the development scientist. The whole spice or herb can be dried and ground according to the required mesh size, appearance, flavor and cost. ASTA lists the extracted flavor components of spice as essential oils, oleoresins and forms of oleoresins that give solubility and stability in various applications.

The essential oil is the volatile portion of the spice. "Volatile oils provide the signature flavor of a spice or herb," says Don Bernacchi, vice president of creative development, Griffith Laboratories, Alsip, IL. "Chefs will use fresh herbs because the lower-boiling-point volatiles are still intact in fresh herbs as opposed to dried herbs." He goes on to explain that, in sauce dry mixes, the spice extractive could deliver immediate impact upon opening the package, which would add to consumer appeal.

Oleoresins contain the volatile and nonvolatile extractive of the spice, or the volatile oil and resin. "Oils are sometimes not as complete as oleoresins, which contain close to all of the flavor constituents," says Reid Wilkerson, president of McClancy Seasoning Co., Fort Mill, SC. Manufacturers can blend oleoresins with emulsifiers for solubility in water-based solutions or plate them onto a carrier for dry blending. Oleoresins and oils can both be encapsulated for reduced loss of the volatile oils.

"The chief advantage of using dehydrated spices in cooking sauces is that you will get more-consistent results time after time," Wilkerson continues. Fresh ingredients can vary in terms of composition, but dehydrated ingredients are typically subject to quality control for selected characteristics, such as volatile oil, pungency and heat.

Cynthia Bernskoetter, technical service supervisor for French's Flavor Ingredients, Springfield, MO, explains that oriental-mustard flour has a high heat, or volatile oil, level. Yellow-mustard flour has no volatile oil. Therefore, manufacturers can blend the two mustard sources to achieve the flavor and heat level best-suited to a given application.

When developing sauces, it's important to understand what is happening to the flavor components of the spice during dry storage, heating and freezing. While intact, the whole spice will experience relatively little flavor loss. Once ground, the spice's increased amount of exposed surface area will result in an increased rate of loss of the volatile oils over time. "Any time you perform a function, you are allowing some of the volatile oil to escape," says Wilkerson. "One of the biggest keys is using spice that is fresh."

Since sauces lose flavor with every processing step, it should come as no surprise that frozen sauces offer the ultimate challenge. Bernacchi notes that frozen entrées have a one-year shelf life, and flavor is lost in both the cooking and freezing steps. Most spice-oil encapsulants will dissolve during the cooking process. He suggests dual encapsulation of spice oils for frozen sauces.

Bernacchi also provides guidance when it comes to spice and salt content: "In using ground spice to season a sauce, or any product, a good rule of thumb is that the delivered spice content should be less than the salt content, which is usually 0.75% to 1.25%."

Alcohol and spirits have livened up cooking sauces for centuries. "Using wine is a trend that has never lost popularity," says Jim Polansky, national sales manager, Todhunter Foods, West Palm Beach, FL. "People are doing more and more with the authentic, chef-made-type products." Joe Colucci, technical sales specialist for the company, adds that "there's an appeal in marketing for naming specific wines on the food product label."

For classical culinary sauces, wines should stay true to the original recipe. "Using wine imparts true wine flavor to the sauce which bears its name," says Polansky. For example, wine selection for sauce madère, with Madeira wine, or sauce bordelaise, with Bordeaux wine, is straightforward. He suggests adding denatured vodka to give authentic flavor to tomato-based vodka sauces.

As ethnic sauces continue to gain popularity, rice wines, such as sake and mirin, are finding their way into supermarket products. Colucci explains that sugar content differentiates mirin from sake, similar to sweet and dry Marsala. Sake functions in Japanese sauces like white wine does in European sauces. A basic Japanese cooking sauce could combine mirin with sake to add sweetness to the dish, balancing the saltiness of the soy sauce.

Beverage wines and cooking wines both work in sauces. The difference is that cooking wines contain 1½% salt to render them nondrinkable for use by processors who do not have a bulk-alcohol permit. To convert from beverage wine to cooking wine, Colucci advises reducing the salt in the formula to adjust for the salt in the wine. Denatured spirits contain salt at a level of 3%.

Wine holds up well in frozen and retort applications. Polansky adds that wine reductions are produced for industrial and foodservice use through processing with careful control of time, temperature and shear: "Those unique flavor chemicals that are in wine undergo reaction by cooking them over time, so the reduction of the wine is not merely a concentrated version of the original wine."

Vinegar is created from the fermentation of alcohol, resulting in a solution of acetic acid, water and flavor components from the source wine. White distilled vinegar, the least-flavored vinegar, starts with grain alcohol. This vinegar works well in applications where vinegar flavor and acidity are needed without any additional flavors. Many sauce applications benefit from vinegar that has a flavor of its own. "Rice-, red- and white-wine vinegars come into play, because they are mellower and have their own flavor attributes that synergize better with different ingredients," says Colucci.

Today, many sauces contain vinegar for both flavor and acidity. "On top of the flavor profile," Colucci continues, "vinegar has a very practical application for food processors to lower the pH of the sauce." This is critical in maintaining the expected shelf life. The measure of acetic acid in vinegar is "grain," the percentage of acetic acid times 10. Vinegar for home use is typically 50 grain, but using a more-concentrated ingredient saves cost in terms of shipping and improves the vinegar's stability.

Many sauces incorporate prepared sauces as an ingredient. Soy, oyster and fish sauces provide the foundation of Asian cooking. What's exciting is that these products not only lend authenticity to Asian dishes, but their flavor and enhancing power lead to applications in nontraditional areas. If a customer desires a "clean" label, soy sauce is a reasonable alternative to other enhancers.

According to Bernskoetter, building upon an existing barbecue sauce can create a signature sauce. For example, barbecue sauces can include honey or smoke flavor to further differentiate the products. Pepper sauces can also add a unique, fermented-chile flavor and heat to sauces. They can also serve as the foundation of Buffalo sauces and flavored hot sauces. She adds that, for the health-conscious consumer, hot sauce and prepared mustard will add flavor without adding much fat or carbohydrates.

The use of flavors offers solutions to challenges associated with flavoring cooking sauces. "The demand for authentic flavors is driven by an increasingly diverse, educated and well-travelled population that is willing to experience new flavors within traditional products," says Stefan H. Strehler, senior development chef, Givaudan Flavours, Cincinnati. He offers that flavors can replace difficult-to-source ethnic ingredients.

"Healthy" products rely heavily on flavors to make up for the lack of ingredients such as salt, carbohydrates, fat or meat. "A flavor can provide lots of taste in a low-fat or low-calorie system, and can mask off notes from minerals, vitamins or artificial sweetener additives," says Hashimoto. Depending on the application, flavors also allow for improved cost and stability over the original raw material, and allows for the development of desirable products.

Flavors can range from simple to very complex. "Depending on the application, common flavors may include base notes, such as autolyzed yeasts extracts; mid notes, such as food bases, reaction flavors and enzyme-modified cheese flavors; and top notes for specific characteristics," says William Prinz, principal flavorist, Givaudan Flavours. Each component of the flavor is designed to achieve a purpose, and good communication between the developer and the flavorist gives the best chance of success.

"The flavor profiles in market-leading products, like Hidden Valley® Ranch, are many times what separates the category leader from the competition," says Hashimoto. "A flavor profile that is unique, hard to duplicate and what the consumer wants can lead to this type of market position."

The first step in applying flavors is screening. Selecting the right flavor to start with can make the difference between mouth-watering and not-quite-right. Ideally, formulators should screen flavors in the complete sauce in terms of formulation and processing. However, this usually is not realistic. "Flavors can be evaluated in a liquid-sauce base, with starch and/or gum added to achieve the right viscosity, and acid, salt or sugar added to achieve the right tang and/or pH," says Hashimoto. "A flavor can also be evaluated in water to get a starting level, which may need to be adjusted in the finished sauce based on flavor interactions with other ingredients."

Usage level is critical with flavors. "A common mistake when using high-intensity flavors is using too much," says Paula Kimbirauskas, food technologist, applications, Butter Buds Food Ingredients, Racine, WI. "If a rancid or cardboard note is detected that was not in the sauce initially, then an overdose has occurred. This is easily corrected by reducing the amount of concentrate used. Sometimes it is difficult for people to realize that adding as little as 0.1% can make a big difference in a product."

Flavors can undergo unexpected interactions. "In order to select and preserve the unique composition of each flavor, the food technologist must be aware of potential interactions with other sauce components, along with anticipated processing and storage conditions of the finished product," says Robin Kasper, applications lab manager, savory, International Flavors & Fragrances Inc., Dayton, NJ. "Understanding how flavors equilibrate over time in various systems is key to ultimate consumer satisfaction when a product reaches the grocery shelf."

Flavors that incorporate notes generated from processing can further differentiate the sauce from other products on the market. "Add the specific flavors of cooking -- i.e., smoking, braising, roasting, grilling, sautéing -- and you create a new way to surprise your customers and tingle their taste buds," says Emily P. Slusher, chef at Givaudan Flavours. "Imagine a homemade chicken soup: Your mouth waters from the smell and taste of the chicken cooked in a broth of vegetables, a blend of carrots, celery, onions, garlic; spices, such as peppercorns, cloves, bay leaves; and fresh herbs of parsley and a hint of tarragon. All these flavors have to be replicated to create the perfect flavor system."

Manufacturers use food bases as the foundation of cooking sauces or to add depth to existing ingredients. "Basically, bases are a complete flavor system enhanced by seasonings and savory vegetables," says Bill Cawley, C.E.C., manager of culinary and technical services, Eatem Foods, Vineland, NJ. The selection criteria for the right base for a specific application will include flavor, salt level, storage requirements and cost. He advises that product designers taste bases in water as a broth and recommends a typical base usage level of 2% to 2½%. He adds that flavor concentrates are, as the name suggests, more concentrated than bases and can be used at 1%.

Certain types of cooking sauces require a meaty flavor, but using bones and/or hunks of meat to provide flavor is not always the best option. According to Gits Prabhu, Ph.D., applications/business development manager, Proliant Meat Ingredients, Ankeny, IA, these can include varieties such as Alfredo sauce, au jus, gravies (beef, chicken or turkey, and white country gravy), chicken bisque, barbecue sauce, spaghetti sauce, teriyaki sauce and garlic-pepper steak sauce.

"Meat flavorings can be used to provide rich savory notes in gravies and can also round out the flavor profile of a teriyaki sauce or a barbecue sauce," Prabhu adds. "Traditionally sauces and soups are derived from long hours of cooking, but today's food processor is looking for savory flavors that will make their products taste like they had been slowly cooked -- without the time factor. Such processors use dried stocks that are made the old-fashioned way, by cooking the bones with their adhering meat, just as you would cook at home. Not only does this method yield authentic, brothy flavors, but it allows for clean labels as well." These products can be labeled as beef, turkey or chicken stock or broth, or similar names.

Formulators can find a number of different meat-based flavoring agents to choose from, including broths, pastes and spray-dried products. "The flavor profile of the spray-dried product versus frozen broth versus a paste does not change significantly," says Prabhu. "However, the spray-dried form is the easiest to use." If cold storage is at a premium, spray-dried and paste ingredients can fit the bill. "The paste is shelf stable and contains approximately 15% added salt, so the salt content of the finished product needs to be adjusted if a paste is used," she says.

While these types of products offer decided advantages for flavor consistency and ease of use, product designers must remain aware of any regulatory implications when formulating certain sauces. "USDA has regulations on spaghetti sauce," Prabhu points out. "For example a spaghetti sauce with meat stock should consist mainly of tomatoes with seasoning. The product must contain 5% beef and 12.5% concentrated meat stock. Spaghetti sauce with meat must contain at least 6% meat, spaghetti sauce with meatballs must contain at least 12% meat."

Adding beef tallow or other appropriate fat to a sauce can also enhance flavor and mouthfeel. "They can be used alone or in combination with the broth," says Prabhu, recommending, for example, tallow at 0.25%, beef stock at 0.5% and beef flavor at 1% in a garlic-pepper sauce.

Creative developers can discover uses for other flavors beyond the contribution of the attribute named on the label. "In addition to providing the natural flavor of butter, cream and cheese, our dairy concentrates can be used to mask off flavors, round out flavor spikes, reduce fat, and heighten cheese, butter and cream flavors," says Kimbirauskas. "Using these products allows the flavor to linger in your mouth longer."

Fruit flavors -- from lemon pepper to Caribbean jerk with papaya juice -- can also add taste and tang to savory cooking sauces. Lex Kongmebhol, quality control leader, Sunkist Growers, Ontario, CA, explains that when developing with orange and lemon, product designers should combine juice with the essential oil for the best sensory experience. "Oil has no body, but it provides initial impact," he says. "The juice gives full body after you swallow." He also advises that the level of the juice and oil products be increased by 10% in processed sauces to allow for flavor loss during cooking. Designers can use the citric acid in lemon juice, 46 grams per liter, as a guide when converting from liquid to dry ingredients.

Enhancers enable the sauce manufacturer to increase the perception of more-expensive ingredients, like meat or cheese, without adding significant cost. The first enhancer that usually comes to mind is monosodium glutamate (MSG), a naturally occurring compound in many ingredients traditionally found in sauces (including soy sauce), Parmesan cheese, mushrooms and tomatoes. Product designers can add MSG to cooking sauces starting at 5% for a dry blend and 0.1% for a finished sauce.

Nucleotides disodium 5' inosinate (IMP) and disodium 5' guanlyate (GMP) act as enhancers alone, blended or in combination with MSG for a synergistic effect. IMP is roughly 100 times stronger than MSG for enhancing, and GMP is twice as strong as IMP. According to Ajinomoto U.S.A., Paramus, NJ, IMP is superior to GMP in cost, solubility and stability, but GMP has superior enhancing power. For that reason, products often contain a blend of equal parts IMP and GMP (I+G). Additionally, the nucleotides' synergy with MSG can help reduce formulation costs.

Hydrolyzed vegetable proteins (HVPs) contribute in multifaceted ways to the flavor of cooking sauces. Dafne Diez de Medina, Ph.D., technical director of research and development, Innova, a Griffith Laboratories Company, Oak Brook, IL, explains that HVPs typically contain 40% to 46% salt and 7% to 15% MSG, making them excellent enhancers in savory applications. A good guideline for the usage level of HVP is 0.5% to 1.0%. She adds that HVP can act as a flavoring agent, to deliver a noncharacterizing meaty profile, or as an enhancer.

Other enhancers for savory sauce applications include yeast and autolyzed yeast extract (AYE). When formulating cheese sauces, AYE works particularly well in enhancing cheese flavor. To a large degree, the success of any given enhancer will depend on its suitability in that application. "'Enhancer' is a very lose term that can be applied to many flavor or food materials," says Prinz. "Improving or increasing the sensations or experience of what we eat can be done via a fairly large group of materials."

The perception of the flavor of the cooking sauce will determine its success. It isn't enough to know that all the "right stuff" is in there. The formulation should allow for nonflavoring ingredients that will impact flavor delivery. "Concentration, availability of materials to receptor sites, competition with other materials at those sites -- all have impact on how the flavor is designed," Prinz explains. The same could be said about the flavor of the sauce as a whole.

Equipped with the knowledge that texture modifiers will impact flavor, the developer can make wise choices. Dan Berg, food scientist, Tate & Lyle, Decatur, IL, recommends tapioca starch for mild-flavored sauces. He adds that selecting the starch for the lowest usage level given the formula and processing conditions will curb the impact on flavor: "Starches can be used to achieve optimal viscosities and control emulsions for consistent flavor release."

Starches aren't the only stabilizers to look at. "Gums are an excellent choice to modify texture and other functional properties, such as emulsification, because they are used at microingredient additions, and thereby have minimal impact on taste," says Scott Riefler, president of TIC Gums, Belcamp, MD, noting they are typically added at between 0.1% and 0.3% by weight. He adds that carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and xanthan would be the hydrocolloids to select for thickening a sauce to optimize flavor delivery.

"Stabilizers and starches can dampen the impact of flavors, but, at the same time, once a flavor is balanced correctly, a thicker sauce may actually enhance the perception of the flavor, as more flavor is in every bite the consumer takes," says Hashimoto. "Flavor delivery can be increased by the addition of fat for profiles that are naturally fatty, like cheese or meats, or the flavor can be dampened in a product with a lot of fruit or spice impact."

Some ingredient interactions, though not obvious, can benefit the flavor of the sauce. For example, honey can lower the perception of sourness, bitterness and saltiness while enhancing sweetness. The National Honey Board, Longmont, CO, lists a number of conversion factors for sweeteners on its website (www.nhb.org). For example, 1,000 grams of sugar would be replaced by 1,214 grams of honey with water taken out to balance the formula.

"Knowledge of the core foundation of various sauces and understanding of 'authentic' culinary profiles must be combined with food technology expertise in order to deliver optimum flavor systems in sauces," says Kasper. Sounds simple, right?

Karen Grenus has eight years combined experience in applied research and product development in the area of dry blends for savory applications. She holds a doctorate degree from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, in Agricultural and Biological Engineering.

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