Answering the daily question, "What's for supper?" can often feel daunting and frustrating for busy people. Elisabeth Bailey's cookbook helps to make weeknight suppers run smoother and inspire families' taste buds so home cooks will get kudos and requests for second helpings rolling in.

Home cooks simply choose from the list of base ingredients (meats, tofu, veggies, rice, pasta …) and pair it with one of Bailey's 'flavour bomb' sauces which can be prepared and frozen ahead of time to make many different meal options.

The cookbook features 61 recipes in a well-organized, easy-to-use layout featuring photos for many of the recipes.  Recipes are categorized into different cuisines and right off the bat, there were many sauce recipes that caught my eye -- Gorgonzola Chive Butter, Pineapple Ginger Sauce, Cheddar Ale Sauce (for Mac 'n' Cheese!!) -- just to name a few.

Bailey helps new-to-the-kitchen home cooks by giving detailed instructions and tips for preparation, storage, freezing and thawing. Recipes can be stored as single servings or larger servings for couples or big batches for large groups. Along with making sauces for our household, I also plan to make single batch servings to fill my 19-year-old son's freezer that he uses while he's away at University - a little taste of home while he's away.

While the pictures and easy-to-understand instructions make prepping these sauces and bases easy for new home cooks, more experienced cooks may find the explanations redundant or oversimplified, but the wide range of sauce recipes will still entice experienced cooks.  Unfortunately, and surprisingly, the nutritional information for each sauce recipe is not included.

Overall, this is a great addition to the home cook's cookbook library. It gives busy families the ability to adapt to various tastes, serving sizes and successfully turn everyday foods into tasty, easy, family-friendly meals with less time and les stress, using ingredients many homes have on-hand or are easily accessible at the local grocery store.

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to the publisher for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

What a wonderful little book!  Very accessible, well-explained, and well-rounded.  The photos are lovely as well, which is always a major plus in a cookbook.  A must-have for those of us who work for a living--especially people with dependents.

This is one of those tempting, attractive cookbooks that you can't help reading immediately.  The consistent organization and presentation are excellent, with a photo of each sauce by itself on a spoon as well as in the context of a meal.  The instructions are clear and thorough.  For each sauce recipe, there are suggested uses with various bases (meats, tofu, pasta, potato, etc),.  These get a bit redundant, because every one is essentially a table of how much of each sauce to use for every type of base, with some suggested side dishes.  I wish I found a higher percentage of the sauces tempting enough to want to make right away, but I did find a few of them appealing and will be giving these a try.

The goal for most home cooks is to make dinners that their families will eat without complaint.  A few, WOW, this is good comments would be amazing.  Well, this book will help you make amazing meals with very little effort.  The entire cookbook is dedicated to making sauces that you can freeze ahead, allowing you to easily step up your game.  Everyone has stood looking into the refrigerator at leftover chicken and mashed potatoes and thought, what can I do with this?  This book gives you many choices, all easy to prepare ahead so your family is not circling the kitchen like starving vultures on a Monday night.  Buy this book and make your life easier while easily impressing your family.

The Make-Ahead Sauce Solution by Elisabeth Bailey is a free NetGalley ebook that I read in mid-October.

Recipes for regional sauces (American, Asian, Mediterranean), then cheese and/or wine sauces, pestos, and salsas. Aha, cooling it in the fridge before freezing it to avoid those measley ice crystals - that’s a giant help to the cooking I do at home, actually, along with all the peripheral cooking instructions and variations/adaptations offering for each kind of sauce. My favorite recipes include chimichurri, teriyaki spinach, yellow curry, Parmesan leek, better chicken butter, and walnut-parsley pesto.

This book is pretty great. Simple instructions for great sauces that you can freeze! No more waste! I love that you can make many of them ahead of time to use later, making dinner a snap. Buy this book!

I have a four-hour commute to work every day and attempt to cook a healthy meal every weeknight even if I have very little time to do it. This is not an easy task and often I fail because most delicious healthy meals take time to prepare. The Make-Ahead Sauce Solution book is a life-saver and offers so many delicious sauces which can be prepared in advance (like on the weekend) and freeze until usage. It also offers great advice on cooking different bases such as chicken, pasta, tofu, etc. The Sausage Ragu sauce was easy to prepare and tasted so good. I am looking forward to trying more and be on the road to conquer fast and healthy meal preparation.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Storey Publishing for the fantastic ARC of The Make-Ahead Sauce Solution by Elisabeth Bailey. This book will be available at your favourite bookstore on October 14, 2018.

As someone who works full-time and comes home with the daunting task of having dinner ready with enough time to spend doing all the other things I want to do on a weeknight, I really felt like the author was speaking to me. She gets it. Life doesn't slow down just because you have people to feed. The premise of this book takes a little getting used to. Rather than teaching you how to cook many different meals, Elisabeth Bailey teaches you how to make many different sauces, which you can then apply to any "starter recipe" for a whole host of possible meals. For instance, her pineapple ginger sauce can be spooned over rice, chicken, shrimp, scallops, pork, or beef for any number of meal possibilities. Once that premise sinks in, you realize just how flexible and open it can be. Any meal can be whipped up with something as simple as a cooked chicken breast and a pre-made sauce that's been thawed out of the freezer.

Ms. Bailey begins by teaching you how to prepare some basics, such as a flour-dredged, pan-fried fish to simple roasted pork loin to pan-seared steak. Then come a parade of sauces, so many that my head was spinning with all the possibilities. There are classics, like sausage ragu, red wine sauce, and pesto. And then there are delightfully creative sauces, such as coconut lemon and green peppercorn and tomatillo avocado. There are recipes for each sauce accompanied by meal suggestions. A particularly smart idea incorporated in the book is "my family's favorite", which denotes the meal suggestion that best suits the sauce. For instance, there are 9 listed meal suggestions for spinach pesto, but the "my family's favorite" is to spread the unique pesto on pan-fried fish fillets and serve it alongside couscous and tomato salad. That sounds like a delicious meal to me, and I envy Elisabeth Bailey for how well her family must eat!

However, at times the meal suggestions seem to be not fully fleshed out. Spooning a sauce over rice and pairing it with something like squash doesn't sound like my idea of a complete meal. Neither does spooning sauces over baked potatoes, which is another meal suggestion that comes up quite frequently. Some of the meal suggestions are puzzling, such as pairing an Asian sauce with sides such as a green salad or sliced baguette.

The book itself is not lacking in recipes, and each sauce comes with a delightful little photograph of a wooden spoon cradling the sauce itself, which was a smart way to photograph something as unphotogenic as a sauce. There are also some photographs of complete meal suggestions, though these are much rarer. I found myself wishing for more of those photographs.

I have yet to try any of the recipes, though there are a number that I've bookmarked and will be trying out in time. This is definitely a book that inspires you to get into the kitchen and get cooking, even if you're short on time. I'm not sure if I would buy it myself, since I think I still prefer traditional recipes to this copy-and-paste approach to cooking, but it's a great idea, and I'm sure it will go over very well with many readers.

Love, love, love this book. I cannot just read it, alas. It must be used! I not only feel strongly enough to add to my bookcase but also add things in it to my freezer and pantry, use them and recommend it to customers at my farmer's market booth. I've greatly cut back on buying cookbooks... but this is one that needs to be here and used. Happy to review on Amazon and beyond after release

This is a make ahead and freeze sauce cookbook. In my opinion on busy days there is nothing like throwing veggies, meat or poultry, cheese and sauce in a crockpot and your dinner is done by dinnertime. I love the freeze ahead idea and putting into baggies. It is like a dump dinner just throw it in and your all set. Add a nice salad and some homemade bread and your ready for a good dinner. The book gives suggestions on what to add to the sauce. Also has very vivid photos of what the sauce looks like. It has everything from Across America, Asian Inspired, Mostly Mediterranean, Cheese and Wine Sauces and Pesto and Salsas. There is something in here for everyones taste.
I received this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

My mouth is watering!  This clear cookbook takes you through the steps from making the sauce, freezing it, to preparing it for dinner.  The wide variety of flavors ensures there is something for everyone you cook for..  I can't wait to get my own copy!

Honestly and truly, I am in love with this book. I work full time and come home absolutely exhausted. I never have energy to cook anything much less whip up a five star meal.

The author reassures me life will never be like that again if I listen and I agree with her. 

She showed me through the book how to make a basic sauce, basic staple and properly funnel, freeze, store sauces and pull them out easily for a fabulous sauce that can be added to anything instantly. 

She has saved me hours of meal prep time and she will do that for you, too! Please buy this wonderful book. I was lucky enough to and it was life altering!

These are easy recipes with regular ingredients that you can prep in advance and freeze with an only minimal effort. Great book.

I loved this book. The sauces look delicious,vvery easy to prepare and they don't require many ingredients. I can't wait to try these recipes out on my family.

I keep hearing how a sauce can transform and hold a dish together and yet sauces are one area that I’m a complete novice with, and so it was for this reason that I was extremely keen to get stuck into this book. 
 
The book has an extremely simple layout, ensuring that you really can’t go wrong.  However, there is room for experimenting with the recipes too.  It is explained that the recipes are a starting point.  They don’t have to be followed exactly to the letter but they can be if you want to. 
 
There is a two-part method, firstly consider your base, i.e. beef, pasta, white fish, tofu, rice, pork etc. In simple, easy to follow, step-by-step instructions, it explains how to prepare each of those bases.  Then instructions for preparing the sauce are given, again using simple step-by-step instructions and easy to find ingredients.  Finally, suggestions of how to use the sauce for each of the suitable bases.  

The sauces can be made in advance and frozen in bags for convenience.  Stunning, full colour photos complete the book.

I loved this book.  It just feels complete and no doubt will become my definitive sauce bible.

Many thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this ARC for which I have given my voluntary and unbiased review.

The Make-Ahead Sauce Solution by Elisabeth Bailey is a cookbook resource that will make meal planning easy. I was excited to look at this cookbook because it contains 61 recipes for sauces that can be frozen and made into meals when you need them. It also said that every recipe was accompanied by a quick-reference chart showing a range of meal possibilities. I would rather make a bunch of dinners on a day-off than try to cook every night so I though that this might be a good cookbook for me.

There are wonderfully detailed (and pictured) instructions on how to make sauces and freeze them in the right method and then thaw them and reheating. They even have "What if" scenario questions that are good to know. However, the pages that follow were the interesting part to me. It is a section called "Preparing a Base for Your Sauce" and it contains easy instructions on everything from pasta, baked potatoes, Tofu, all the meat options, etc. and it even included sandwiches, side veggies and soups. The reason I thought this was so incredible was that the reference chart for meal possibilities was set up based on the preparing a base section.

Sauce Solution Using a Base Example
Say for example you want to try the sauce solution of Roasted Red Pepper and you take a bag of it out of your freezer. The chart shows you 8 different meals that you can make using the base options of; pasta, potato, chicken, shrimp and scallops, white fish, pork, beef and veggies. The author even calls out "My Family's Favorite" options in the chart, and she gives suggestions on sides that give you a complete meal.

This was a rather magical find for me, because I'm not a great meal planner, and usually I need to use up what was on sale and in my freezer. Having lots of options for each sauce possibility just made a mix-and-match meals so much easier and more appetizing.  Eating chicken 3 nights in a row becomes a lot more exciting when you can make a Mediterranean meal on night 1, an Asian inspired meal night 2 and an American classic on night 3.

Now on to some of the recipes to get you excited about adding this book to your cookbook library. How do these sound; Creamy Chipotle, Pumpkin Coconut Cream, Teriyaki Spinach, Sausage Ragu, Sage Pancetta Mushroom, Cheddar Ale (yes, it's listed as a family favorite and now mine is used over pasta to make an amazing mac and cheese!) and the list gets better and better! Now, I bet you are wondering where the sandwich and soup options come in, so let me give you a savory example. The sauce is Blue Cheese, Pear, and Hazelnut the sandwich idea is spreading the sauce over a sliced sandwich bun and topping it with sliced cold pork and crisp lettuce. Next, spice up your soup with Pepper Havarti by garnishing with a spoonful or an amount to your taste.

There is so much variety of ingredients in these sauces that you'll be able to find lots of options to try. This cookbook will be great for your library and if you have a friend or family member who likes to cook (or perhaps that needs help on planning and meal variety) it would make a great gift idea.

What a great idea not only does it produce a better meal on a day when one is too tired to make a big effort, but it saves money. How many of use have been guilty of purchasing those ready made sauces or mixes at the supermarket. They are expensive at about $3.00 or more a pop, with lots of preservatives and flavourings, and then you have to go out and buy them.
This book gives you an easy alternative, sure it will take some effort - a weekend or so - but frozen packs of wonderful meal magic, made by you, to enhance whatever you like. There are sauces to go with chicken, meat, fish, tofu, pasta and whatever you like - convert into soup, sandwich fillings and more.
The book is well layout with clear instruction - there are no glamour shot, just a down to earth and practical book with lots of good information and tips.

This is a really handy book to have, and is one I will look to get in paper copy for myself. It is really well structured at the beginning and clearly explains the concept of the book. I like how Elisabeth Bailey gives some ideas for simple bases and vegetables that can be cooked to go with the sauces, otherwise you are free to combine your own plate as you wish. There are really good freezing tips and guides at the beginning which I found very helpful in making the most out of the book, which is really designed to make your weekday meals quicker and easier by preparing sauces in advance. As for the recipes themselves, they are clear and easy to follow. There is a picture for each recipe which I always think is important, but the best part for me is that Elisabeth Bailey gives a chart after the recipe with ideas of how to use that particular sauce. Great for inspiring weekday meals. The only downside for me is that everything is measured in cups which is primarily for an American audience. I would prefer to have metric measurements, but then maybe I just need to invest in some measuring cups!

With so many of us being too busy to prepare nutritious and tasty meals, this book has been a real inspiration. Having the ability to store sauces in the freezer that can be quickly added to a variety of bases to make an evening meal after being out to work all day is brilliant. Laid out clearly with suggestions as to what each sauce can be paired with and how much would be required per portion, it therefore takes out much of the guesswork.
The hardest aspect was googling the american terms so I knew what to buy in the UK.

This book would make a useful resource for university students where they have to cater for themselves.

As a busy mum with three kids I am always on the look out for some new easy recipes for evening meals that are quick yet healthy, So I was excited to try Elizabeth Baileys The Make Ahead Sauce Solution.


The book is beautifully presented and there are plenty of photos throughout. Each recipe is clear and easy to understand and there are plenty of tips along the way. Its all very easy to follow. I would say it is on the basic side, so ideal for beginners or those seeking a simple approach to cooking. So if you want to cook simple base sauces, defrost them and pair them with a specific meat in minimal time then its perfect for you. I would say it wouldn't be a huge interest to those who cook from scratch regularly or who like to try lots of new and different things.

As a vegetarian I didn't really find there much here for me. There is a brief mention of using the sauces with tofu and some of the sauces are ideal for potatoes and pasta - but that's about as exciting as it gets. Of course, the recipes could probably be adapted to suit, but I do think its all more suited to a more meaty diet.

Overall a nice little cook book and ideal for busy people. I do like the idea of cooking and freezing the food in batches and then defrosting when needed, but the majority of recipes were a little on the boring side for me.