Bread Sauce substitute

Substitutes for Bread Sauce with ratios

1. 2Bechamel or white sauce with cloves and nutmeg

   Different texture

   500 ml bechamel plus ¼ teaspoon ground cloves and a good grating of nutmeg replaces one batch of bread sauce

   The right flavour direction in the wrong texture.

   What changes

   A flour-thickened white sauce is smooth and glossy where bread sauce is nubbly and soft, so the plate reads as a cream sauce with turkey rather than as bread sauce. Season it hard with white pepper and salt, since bechamel starts out blander than bread sauce does.

   Best for

   making ahead in quantity, when you want a smooth sauce, leftover turkey pies and gratins

   Infuse the milk with the clove-studded onion and bay before you make the roux, exactly as you would for bread sauce, which gets you much closer than adding ground spice at the end. A tablespoon of fresh breadcrumbs stirred in at the end gives a hint of the right texture.

2. 3Ground almonds

   Taste and texture differ

   Use About 65 g ground almonds for every 100 g fresh breadcrumbs

   A good gluten-free option with real historical precedent, since medieval English cooks thickened sauces this way.

   What changes

   It is richer and faintly sweet, with a slightly sandy rather than soft texture, and it browns and thickens more as it sits. The clove and onion still come through clearly.

   Best for

   gluten-free Christmas dinner, game birds, a richer sauce, roast pheasant and partridge

   Almonds absorb less liquid than bread, so start with less milk and add more only if needed. Do not let it boil hard, as the almond oil can separate and leave the surface looking greasy.

3. 4Instant mashed potato flakes

   Different texture

   Use About 50 g flakes for every 100 g fresh breadcrumbs

   Gluten-free, cheap and surprisingly effective, but the result is stickier and more gluey than bread sauce, closer to a loose mashed potato than a sauce.

   What changes

   The flavour is neutral enough that the clove and bay do all the talking, which is really what you want.

   Best for

   gluten-free cooking at short notice, large batches, when you have nothing else

   Add the flakes off the heat, a little at a time, whisking as you go, and stop while it is still looser than you want. It stiffens dramatically within a minute and there is no undoing it except with more hot milk.

4. 5Cooked short-grain rice, blitzed

   Taste and texture differ

   Use About 200 g cooked rice for every 100 g fresh breadcrumbs

   Another gluten-free route, and the smoothest of them.

   What changes

   Blitzed cooked pudding rice or arborio into the infused milk gives a thick, creamy, slightly elastic sauce. It is silkier than bread sauce and has none of the bready flavour, so it tastes cleaner and milder.

   Best for

   gluten-free dinners, using up leftover rice, a smooth, spoonable sauce

   Blitz with a stick blender directly in the pan and stop as soon as it is smooth, since over-blending rice makes it stretchy. Long-grain rice does not work well here, it stays too distinct.

5. 6Cranberry sauce or gravy instead

   Taste and texture differ

   Serve to taste

   The honest admission that these do not substitute for bread sauce at all, they replace it with something else.

   What changes

   Cranberry is sharp and sweet and cuts fat, gravy is savoury and salty and adds depth. Both are good on turkey and neither provides the soft, mild, milky cushion bread sauce provides. Your dinner will be excellent and slightly less complete.

   Best for

   when you simply have no time, guests who do not know bread sauce, keeping a Christmas plate simple

   If you go this route, add a little cream or extra butter to the gravy so the plate is not short of richness, since bread sauce was contributing that as well as flavour.