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How to Make Mint Sauce
by Jane Lake
Making mint sauce to go with roast lamb was a Sunday tradition in my family when we lived in England. Our mint patch occupied a good sized corner of the garden, and mint was freshly picked, chopped with a little sugar, and added to malt vinegar to make the mint sauce.
Mint sauce also makes an excellent condiment to use with lamb chops, pork chops, and to flavor new potatoes and peas. A new use for mint sauce in my family arose from the blandness associated with frozen T.V. dinners - add a spoonful of mint sauce after heating a beef, turkey or salisbury steak T.V. dinner and the flavors are enhanced wonderfully.
As a herbal vinegar, mint sauce makes an appealing gift in a jar recipe. It is very inexpensive and simple to make - yet is often pricey to buy, usually being imported from England and stocked with the speciality items.
English Mint Sauce - A Gift in the Jar Herbal Vinegar!
Ingredients:
Mint Sauce
Instructions:
Rinse young, healthy mint leaves, strip from the stems, and chop into fine pieces. I usually process most of the leaves in the blender, with a little of the vinegar, leaving some aside to chop by hand. The leaves chopped in the blender will be very fine, and infuse a fine flavor, while those done by hand are a little coarser and will be more visible in the decorative vinegar jar.
Bring vinegar to a simmer in a small saucepan, add sugar and chopped leaves. Simmer for about 20 minutes to infuse. Add more sugar or add a little water to taste, depending on how strong or how sweet you want the sauce. (I add no extra water or sugar to this recipe, but you may prefer a less strong infusion.)
You can re-use lots of different bottles for mint sauce...I've used bottles and jars that once contained steak sauce, olive oil, baby food and salad dressings. Tall narrow jars look elegant, but short, squat jars allow you to use a spoon to serve the mint sauce. Make sure the bottles are free of nicks or cracks and sealable with either a screw top or cork. Wash containers thoroughly, then sterilize by immersing the jars in a pan of hot water and simmering for 10 minutes. Once jars are sterilized, remove from the simmering water and invert on paper towel to dry. Fill while the jars are still warm and seal tightly. If using corks and you intend to store the vinegar for an extended time, seal the corks by dipping in paraffin; if using a screw top, place a small square of waxed paper on top of the jar before screwing the lid on tight.
You can add a small fresh sprig of mint to your jars, if you wish, for visual appeal - just insert into the jar before adding the mint sauce. Use a funnel to add the sauce, stirring as you pour it into the funnel to make sure you get lots of mint leaves mixed with the vinegar. You'll find that the mint settles to the bottom of the jar, so the mint sauce should be gently shaken or stirred before serving.
Vinegar has natural preservative qualities, and mint sauce should keep for 2 to 3 months in cold storage or for 6 to 8 months in the refrigerator.
I made your recipe for a friend who likes it with new potatoes. He claims it is the best mint sauce he ever tasted.....even better than his mom's.
I made your recipe for a friend who likes it with new potatoes. He claims it is the best mint sauce he ever tasted.....even better than his mom's.
after me and my mum had grown a new batche of mint we decided to make mint sauce for the first time it ended up tasting very nice with our roast. i thank god that we found this recipe or otherwise we would of ended up with gloop instead of the tastey mint sauce that we got.
thanks...we have mint growing in our back yard and i want to make a use for it!
Thanks so much for the recipe. My partner and I have discovered the joys of growing our own veggies and herbs since moving to our new home. Our mint is growing so fast I felt the need to finally make our own mint sauce!! Was so pleased to find this great easy to follow recipe.
Dear Jane Lake,
Thanks for the mint sauce recipe. Sounds like just how my Mum, June Lake, used to fix it when we lived in Melbourne, Australia.
I was a Lake by birth so you name got me curious. Where are you from?
Sincerely, Trish Lake Quigley
haveing made some mint sauce i found it went brown and did not smell good after one week any ideas as to what might have gone wrong with this best regards
Today is Easter and heaven forbid I had No mint sauce or even mint jelly to go with my hubbys leg of lamb. After sending my daughter on a wild hunt for something to satisfy her dads "need" for mint sauce , I hint this websight and found your recipe. Since my hubby is from Australia I knew an English recipe would do just fine. I had no malt vinegar so I used balsmic vinegar with a small bit of white added in, I had my hubby try it and he is very pleased. So Thank you and everyone else can know now that balsmic vinegar will work also .
Thank you for this recipe. All the others I found were not what my grandmother made and this is the closest to the way I remember hers. I will use this tomorrow for the Easter lamb.
We, too, miss home and Mint Sauce, we can only get Mint Jelly, so I was thrilled to get this online. Thanks.
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