Mint Sauce made with fresh Mint is a standard accompaniment to roast lamb, but its sweet, sour, and minty flavors are terrific elsewhere too.
A Note on the Ingredients
There are only four ingredients for making a fresh Mint Sauce: Fresh Mint, Sugar, White Vinegar and Boiling Water.
As for the amounts of each ingredient, there is a lot of flexibility depending on how sweet or sour you want the result to be. I learned how to make this sauce from my mother when I was in my teens and, ever since, I have pretty much ‘eyeballed’ the quantities each time I put a batch together. The amounts I have given in the recipe card below present a pretty good starting point and you can tweak the amounts to suit your taste as you choose.
The variety of mint I have used here is a type of Peppermint, as far as I can tell. There are scores of varieties though, so you may wish to experiment a little.
The Basic Method
The method is simple…
Just chop you mint leaves finely and add them to a suitable bowl, jar, or other receptacle along with the sugar. Next, pour over enough boiling water to cover the mint leaves and stir to dissolve the sugar. As soon as this has been achieved, add the vinegar and the chill the sauce in the fridge.
That’s it ….
By the way, you will see that the color of the mint brightens to a beautiful vivid green when you pour in the boiling water. As long as you cool it down quickly by adding the vinegar immediately, the color will stay nicely bright for at least a day (certainly long enough for one meal). After that, if you have made more than needed for one use, you can store it in the fridge. The color will darken and lose its prettiness after a day or so but the flavor will main sharp and bright for ages and ages.
Other Uses for Mint Sauce
Aside from being used as a table condiment, the sauce is also useful as a marinade. I often use it this way on lamb chops before broiling them. With a little additional sugar, it can also be used to glaze meats for the barbecue and I like this, especially with a little rosemary added, on cubes of lamb, or even pork, for Souvlaki. It is also good on vegetables, particularly carrots and, when I was a kid, I would often pour the sauce over the green vegetables on my plate as well as the sliced lamb.
Your Recipe Card:
Mint Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 small bunch of Mint
- ¼ cup of sugar
- ¼ cup boiling water
- ¾ cup of White vinegar
Instructions
- Finely chop the Mint leaves (discarding the stems) and put them into a glass jar, or jug, along with the sugar.
- Pour in sufficient boiling water to cover the mint and stir well to dissolve the sugar.
- Add the Vinegar and then cool, and chill in the fridge before use.
It’s hard to beat having some homemade mint sauce when eating a lamb dish.
And I now have four different kinds of Mint growing outside my new house 🙂