Skip to main content
48 votes
Accepted

I never succeed in thickening sauces with pasta water. What am I doing wrong?

You seem to have the wrong expectations. No, it will never be as thickening as a cornstarch slurry. If that's the level of thickening you expect, you are really better off using the slurry. Don't ...
rumtscho's user avatar
  • 141k
20 votes
Accepted

Common ingredient to thicken the soup

There are lots of potential thickeners, but you often need to select the one that works best with your given need (temperature, if it has dairy, resulting mouthfeel, etc). In your case, you're ...
Joe's user avatar
  • 82.1k
17 votes

I never succeed in thickening sauces with pasta water. What am I doing wrong?

Think of your pasta water as a tool for emulsification, rather than "thickening." Adding pasta water to your condiment pan has the benefit of helping the condiment form an emulsified sauce that ...
moscafj's user avatar
  • 77.9k
13 votes
Accepted

Thicken stew/sauce twice with flour

A reaction that prevents starch from the same plant thickening if you add it later instead of all at the same time seems very unlikely. And anyway, a roux could be made with non-wheat flour even ...
Chris H's user avatar
  • 45.8k
13 votes

Is flouring meat necessary in stews (specifically ossobuco)?

I'd say the reasoning is three-fold. It cooks it first, in oil, so it's not going to go lumpy when liquid is added, same premise as a roux but one-pot. It saves having to make up a slurry later, ...
Tetsujin's user avatar
  • 29.9k
12 votes

How can I thicken egg yolks for a sauce?

Not a recipe, but I will share a technique. Using sous vide you can cook egg yolks to a consistency where they will behave like a sauce. You separate the yolks, and drop them into a container of oil,...
moscafj's user avatar
  • 77.9k
11 votes

I never succeed in thickening sauces with pasta water. What am I doing wrong?

As moscafj said, pasta water cannot be understood as a thickening agent at all. In fact, I understand it as a thinning agent: after your sauce has boiled down to more of a paste (great taste, but not ...
leftaroundabout's user avatar
10 votes
Accepted

How to thicken salad dressing

A very small amount of xanthan gum will work. It is commonly used in salad dressings. Be careful though, too much will result in an unpleasant texture that some describe as mucus-like. Maybe start ...
moscafj's user avatar
  • 77.9k
10 votes
Accepted

How to decide whether to reduce a sauce or thicken it?

The best way to decide whether to reduce a sauce or to add a thickening agent is to taste it. If the flavour is as strong as you want it to be, then reduce it no further and add something to thicken ...
canardgras's user avatar
  • 2,425
9 votes

Fixing too much corn starch

Corn starch is a thickener, but not right out of the box. It needs to be heated to gelatinize, which also gets rid of the chalky taste. If you tried to cook your random sauce now, you'd get a very ...
Stephie's user avatar
  • 61.4k
8 votes

Common ingredient to thicken the soup

If you are looking for the basic and common ingredient to thicken the soup then I would suggest to go with Corn flour. All you need to do is mix corn flour in cold water. Add it into soup and stir ...
The Hungry Dictator's user avatar
8 votes
Accepted

What are the cheapest options for a thickening agent for making soups?

An absolutely definitive answer would be based on a formula that takes into account the thickening power per weight of different thickeners as well as the cost per weight of the thickening agent. That'...
GdD's user avatar
  • 78k
6 votes
Accepted

Can I add seasoning to the beurre manie?

Using roux - flavoured with curry powder and aromatics - is a well known, often used technique for japanese and chinese style curries. Your mileage may vary with beurre manie (known to be finicky), if ...
rackandboneman's user avatar
6 votes

How to get the texture of commercial ketchup?

Try sugar. Per Heinz' website, the ingredients in their ketchup are: TOMATO CONCENTRATE FROM RED RIPE TOMATOES, DISTILLED VINEGAR, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CORN SYRUP, SALT, SPICE, ONION ...
senschen's user avatar
  • 3,055
6 votes

How can a Bavarian cream that includes orange juice thicken with so much liquid?

The egg yolks can thicken the liquid when you heat it, like in a standard egg custard (the home made version, not the one made from custard powder). But this is a fairly tricky procedure: if you heat ...
remco's user avatar
  • 1,157
6 votes

How to decide whether to reduce a sauce or thicken it?

You are on the right track. Reducing is when you let the cooking liquids gently evaporate until the resulting sauce is concentrated to your desired taste and consistency. Thickening is when some type ...
Cindy's user avatar
  • 18.3k
5 votes

Alternative thickener for soups and stews

Take one or two scoops of your soup (prefer the solid parts), put it into a blender, blitz until smooth and put it back into your soup. You'll get zero additional calories and zero awful stuff your ...
eckes's user avatar
  • 1,251
5 votes

How to thicken salad dressing

Most dressing is thickened by an emulsion, so @moscafj's answer of xanthan gum is probably the most direct improvement of this recipe if you're happy with the flavor balance. But another thing you ...
Bloodgain's user avatar
  • 783
5 votes
Accepted

How to make Instant Hot Chocolate Taste Less Watery

I can think of four possible fixes. One is simply, use less water - a smaller amount of a richer drink may well be preferable to a larger amount of a watery drink. Another is the reverse, use more ...
Megha's user avatar
  • 11.8k
5 votes
Accepted

How to thicken watery gravy?

Your options are really limited to: Reducing, i.e. simmering until you have less of a thicker gravy, but then (i) you might not have enough and (ii) you risk overcooking the chicken (and some other ...
Chris H's user avatar
  • 45.8k
5 votes

How can I thicken egg yolks for a sauce?

Okay guys, thanks for contribution and sorry for not knowing that question could be mistaken for recipe request. After reading your feedback, I finally succeeded. I went to the shop and bought tall, ...
emteka's user avatar
  • 151
4 votes

Alternative thickener for soups and stews

I would suggest Arrowroot powder; it is a powerful thickener, has no real flavor of its own, and can be used at lower temperatures. It is a bit more expensive, but if you can afford it, I would say ...
Incorporeal Logic's user avatar
4 votes
Accepted

Alternative thickener for soups and stews

You could use a corn starch and water slurry. Less corn starch is needed as compared to flour and no oil. Thickens quite well.
CMB92's user avatar
  • 1,048
4 votes

How can I make my Hot chocolate thicker?

I find cornstarch gives an unwanted flavour for chocolate milk or cocoa, as does xanthum gum. Guar gum works well, it dissolves with a whisk and thickens without heating. I use 1/8 tsp per cup. ...
Steven's user avatar
  • 41
4 votes
Accepted

Will a hot cornstarch slurry added to a cold mixture still have a thickening effect?

It would probably work but for the proper consistency of the finished product, your cooked cornstarch slurry would need to be very thick. This would make it difficult to mix into a homogenized smooth ...
Jude's user avatar
  • 3,953
4 votes

Common ingredient to thicken the soup

@Joe has provided an excellent all-purpose answer, but there's one possibility I don't see mentioned: egg. A beaten egg stirred into your rice mixture will bind and help thicken things up. It will ...
senschen's user avatar
  • 3,055
4 votes

How to thicken salad dressing

Garlic can also add creaminess depending on how you prepare it, but you typically need a little course salt. (Which you said you're trying to avoid, so you'll have to decide if the small amount of ...
Joe's user avatar
  • 82.1k
4 votes
Accepted

What is the best substitute for sugar when cooking thick jam?

The conservation issue aside: It depends heavily on what fruits you want to use. Fruits that contain a lot of fiber might not need any thickening agent to get a good, spreadable consistency. This ...
Gretel_f's user avatar
  • 1,096
4 votes

Steak pie filling thickener

Normally, I aim to have very little liquid in my filling before it goes in a pie, rather than thicken it a lot. It just seems to keep the pastry better & saves me having to blind bake the base. I ...
Tetsujin's user avatar
  • 29.9k
4 votes

Is flouring meat necessary in stews (specifically ossobuco)?

Flouring meat is absolutely NOT required in stews. I made what amounts to a chicken stew the other night and I didn't thicken it till the end. In fact, a stew doesn't necessarily need to be thick at ...
Peter Roscoe's user avatar

Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible