My friend gave me some sourdough bread sticks from the community box. Since Christmas is just around the corner, I decided to try to make it into a sauce to go with my roast chicken with turkey rice Italian seasoning stuffing. I searched for bread sauce recipes and found a handful of recipes that said it can be made in advance for up to 3-4 days, however it needed more milk as the days goes by it will thicken more.

Bread sauce, as far as I know, is from medieval times: it is made by adding bread as a thickener. The ingredients are milk, onion, stale bread with crumbs, and butter added to thicken it, seasoned with nutmeg powder, cloves, 2 bay leaves, salt, and pepper. It is usually served with turkey or chicken. Thus, ciabatta bread is recommended for the sauce.

I am trying it out with sourdough bread sticks; I don’t have fresh nutmeg where most recipes use it and grate it. I have used nutmeg powder, a pinch or two allspice, full cream, and skim milk. Then seasoned with lots of pepper and salt to taste. Made a small amount to try and I am glad it turned out well. Let’s cook!!!

This recipe is half

Ingredients

1 stale sourdough breadstick
15 g butter
200 ml full cream milk
200 ml skim milk
50 ml full cream
50 ml skim milk
2-4 Tbs thickened cream
4 cloves
2 dried bay leaves
1/2 onion
1/2 Tsp nutmeg powder
a pinch or two of allspice
salt
black pepper
extra stale bread, if needed (too liquid)
extra milk, if needed (too dry)

Method

Cut the breadstick to thick chunk or cubes with crumbs. Put into a bowl and set aside. Peel and sliced the onion. Put the onion slices into a medium pot with bay leaves, 200 ml full cream milk, 200 ml skim milk, a few pinch of salt and pepper. Finally nutmeg powder and a pinch of allspice. Heat the pot on high heat and bring it to a boil. Keep a close eye on it as milk comes to the boil very suddenly.

Reduce heat and simmer very gently for 5 minutes to let the flavour infuse. Remove from hob and let it stand 15 minutes and to cool down. Meantime, bring out food processor, place the blade into the cup of food processor. Strain milk through a sieve, discard cloves, and bay leaves in the sieve into another pot.

Now add in the chunk or cubes bread and onion slices into the food processor. Blitz until you have coarse bread crumbs. Return the pot to hob and bring to the boil on high heat 1-2 minutes. Reduce heat medium and simmer; gradually stirring in bread crumbs until you have used them all up.

Add butter and cream to the pot. Stir well then have a taste and season with salt and pepper. If too liquid blitz some more bread. If too thick add more milk. Transfer to bowl or a jug. Season with more pepper. Serve with turkey or chicken.

Note: You can use ciabatta bread. If you are making a full recipe, increase the ingredients. You can omit allspice and use ground mace instead. You can use the whole onion and stud the cloves into the onion, then discard the onion. I don’t like wasting food, so I sliced and blitzed them later with bread for more flavour. If you are making it in advance, keep it in the fridge with cling wrap. On Christmas Day, just before serving, warm it up in the microwave, stirring a couple of times. Check the consistency; you might need more milk, so add more until the consistency of the sauce is right.

https://helenscchin.com/2025/12/21/bread-sauce/

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