Balsamic Red Wine Sauce

 

• Difficulty: Easy
• Serves: 4 as a condiment with meat or vegetables
• Prep Time: 10 min
• Cook Time: 20 min

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp. LunaOlivo Garlic olive oil
• 1 medium shallot, minced
• ½ tsp. freshly ground pepper
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1 c. red wine
• ¼ c. LunaOlivo Modena balsamic vinegar
• 2 Tbsp. honey
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme
• 2 Tbsp. butter

Instructions

1. Heat the olive oil in a small sauce pan over medium-high heat.
2. Add the shallot and cook until soft and translucent but not brown, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Add the wine, vinegar, honey, and thyme to the pan. Whisk to combine.
4. Increase the heat to high and bring the mixture to a boil.
5. Reduce the heat to medium-high and boil mixture slowly until reduced by half, 15-20 minutes.
6. Pour reduced mixture through a fine strainer into a small bowl, pressing the solids to extract as much liquid as possible.
7. Return the strained liquid to the sauce pan and warm over low heat.
8. Whisk in butter until melted and fully combined.
9. Taste for seasoning and add more salt and pepper as needed.

Recipe for Success

• You can substitute a spring or two of rosemary for the thyme in this recipe or even use a combination of the two. The herbs add an additional level of earthy flavor to the wine but if you’d like, you can also leave them out if you don’t have them on hand. For this application fresh herbs are best, it’s better to skip them than use dried herbs.
• You can make the sauce 30 minutes ahead of time. Leave it off the heat and gently re-warm it over low heat when ready to serve. The sauce may separate some but a quick whisk will recombine it.
• I strain the herbs and shallots from the sauce to create a smoother sauce. You can absolutely skip the straining step and the sauce will have some texture from the shallots and thyme, giving it a more rustic feel. If you choose not to strain the sauce, be sure to fish out any woody stems from the thyme; the leaves will fall off during the reduction. If you use rosemary instead of or in addition to the thyme and don’t plan to strain the sauce, strip them from the stems first and give them a rough chop before adding to the sauce so you don’t end up with full-size rosemary leaves in the sauce.