Flavored Cream Cheese Is Key For Delicious, Thick Sauces

A sauce is an important component in almost any meal. It acts as the star component of some dishes, like truffle cream pasta, and creates a smooth and flavorful backdrop to the main ingredients in others, like in chicken marsala. Making a good sauce can be difficult to get right, but luckily we have the perfect hack for you. Use flavored cream cheese to make sauces velvety and irresistible in mere minutes.

It is not uncommon to see cream cheese as a base for many quick recipes. This is mainly due to its versatile flavor and texture. Cream cheese readily takes the place of many ingredients used in thick sauces. It has a high-fat content similar to heavy cream while possessing the salty, savory taste of cheese. There is also the added bonus of cream cheese typically containing stabilizers, which can help to keep sauces from breaking or separating. Moreover, using a flavored cream cheese can bring even more to the table, as the added flavor will further amp up the quality and complexity of your sauce.

The flavor of cream cheese you use to make a sauce depends on what you intend to use the sauce for. For example, heavy cuts of protein benefit from a zesty, assertive sauce to add contrast. In these cases, making a sauce with garlic herb or red pepper cream cheese would be a great idea. On the other hand, dishes like pasta or eggs often rely on intensely savory sauces to enhance their flavors, so we recommend trying a sauce using salmon or sun-dried tomato cream cheese. Finally, you can't go wrong with using sweet cream cheese, such as cinnamon sugar or strawberry flavored, to elevate breakfast items like pancakes or French toast.

Making a sauce with cream cheese is simple. All you need is a little bit of liquid to loosen it up and make the consistency more sauce-like. In most cases, milk will be your go-to, as it is traditionally used in cream sauces; however, you can experiment with liquids like chicken broth for extra umami or pasta water for added salt. If you are worried that thinning the sauce will make it lose its creaminess, you can also add a knob of butter to re-balance the texture.