About 2 hr · Sauces
Sauce day
Updated
A tomato sauce, a curry base, a stir-fry sauce, a gravy and a paste: one of each kind of cube most kitchens reach for. Batch costs are estimates.
| Sauce | Cubes | Batch cost | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Classic Tomato Sauce | 43 | £3.19 | 55 min |
| Tikka Masala Base | 50 | £3.78 | 1 hr |
| Teriyaki | 15 | £4.09 | 20 min |
| Onion Gravy | 37 | £1.85 | 50 min |
| Garlic-Ginger Paste | 29 | £4.07 | 10 min |
| Total | 174 | £16.98 |
These five cover pasta night, curry night, a roast, stir-fries and the start of almost anything else. You need three pans, a stick blender, about ten 30ml trays and two mini trays, or freeze in rounds and re-use the trays.
The timeline
| Time | What to do |
|---|---|
| 0:00 | Prep. Chop 8 onions in total (4 for the curry base, 4 thinly sliced for the gravy), halve 2 more for the tomato sauce, and peel the garlic and ginger. (20 min) |
| 0:20 | Start the gravy onions on a low heat; they need 30 minutes of slow cooking. Start the curry base onions in a second pan. |
| 0:30 | Blitz the garlic-ginger paste and fill the mini trays. |
| 0:40 | Start the tomato sauce in the third pan and leave it to simmer for 45 minutes. |
| 0:50 | Finish the gravy with flour, stock and balsamic. Add the spices and tomatoes to the curry base and simmer 20 minutes. |
| 1:10 | Make the teriyaki in the gravy pan once it’s free; it takes 5 minutes. |
| 1:25 | Blend the curry base, lift the onions out of the tomato sauce, and spread everything out to cool. |
| 1:30–2:00 | Fill the trays as each sauce cools, freeze, and wash up. |
