Red Wine Reduction Sauce (2024)

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The sauce that makes every steak taste like a steakhouse steak, Red Wine Reduction Sauce! This sauce is flavorful, rich, and the perfect pairing to a pan-seared or grilled steak. It uses the drippings from the steak as the base and fresh ingredients that complement each other so well to bring it all together. And, it takes under 10 minutes to make!

Red Wine Sauce for Steak

If you know anything about me, you know I love cooking steak for my family. It is a constant feature in my household, from grilled chuck steak to gorgeous pan-seared ribeye.

One of my favorite additions to steak is to make a mouth-watering sauce with it. This red wine reduction sauce is the result of wanting a beautiful sauce to serve with a cut of ribeye! All those delicious brown bits you scrape up from the bottom of the pan, and the drippings, are just what you need to make the base of a beautiful reduction sauce.

Garlic and shallots concentrate the flavors built up in the pan. The red wine reduces to thickens and intensifies those flavors, and the balsamic vinegar adds the perfect touch of sweetness and tang that pair so nicely with a perfectly cooked steak.

You will not believe how easily this sauce comes together! The lovely, rich deep red notes look fabulous in a dish on the table or ladled over sliced steak right on the plate. I guarantee you're going to love it.

Super flavor and easy! Made it with semi-sweet merlot in deer steak drippings. So Good! New go to wine sauce recipe. Thank you for sharing!

Carol on Pinterest

Red Wine Reduction Ingredients

• drippings from steak
• minced garlicor garlic paste
• minced shallotsor red onions
• red wineof your choice, or equal amounts beef stock if not using wine
• balsamic vinegar
• fresh thyme
• beef stock
• parsley leaves
• butter

Red Wine Sauce Recipe

1. Reserve steak drippings from your cooked steak in the pan over medium heat. If you haven't cooked a steak, melt butter in a cast-iron skillet. Then, add garlic and shallots and saute, stirring until tender, about 1 minute.
2. Add red wine, beef stock, balsamic vinegar, and fresh thyme sprigs. Bring liquid to a rapid simmer over medium-high heat.
3. Allow the wine mixture to reduce until thickened, approximately 3 to 5 minutes.
4. Remove the thyme from the sauce and turn the heat to low. Whisk in butter and let the sauce simmer for a couple of minutes.
5. Add parsley and season with salt and pepper if desired.

Steak Red Wine Sauce Tips

• Drinking wine rather than cooking wine works best for red wine reduction sauce.
• If you are making this recipe and you do not have steak drippings, you can substitute 1 Tablespoon butter to melt in the pan before adding the garlic and shallots.
• When making a pan sauce, always monitor your heat. If the sauce breaks, it is likely because the smoking point of the fat was too high when the wine was added.
• If you notice the sauce starting to break, immediately remove it from the heat and begin to whisk vigorously.

What wine should I use for wine sauce for steak?

Different notes are added to the sauce depending on the type of wine you select. I prefer to use full-bodied reds like Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot. These wines have rich and fruity cherry, plum, and currant notes that work nicely with steak.

Some dry red wines add spicy notes like pepper, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, anise, ginger, or cardamom. These wines typically come from Syrah, Grenache, Petite Syrah, Malbec, or Zinfandel grapes.

You can use Pinot Noir, Chianti, or French Cotes du Rhone for the lightest version of this sauce. These wines are typically lighter and have earthy notes, like that of oak or smoke because the grape skins are thinner.

Whatever flavors sound best to you are what you should use for your red wine reduction sauce.

Red Wine Reduction Sauce FAQs

Steak Recipes to Use Red Wine Reduction

• New York Strip Steak
• Porterhouse Steak
• Pan Seared Steak
• Wagyu Steak
• Filet Mignon

I always refer to this steak temperature chart in order to cook the perfect medium rare steak.

Sauces for Steaks

• Beef Gravy Recip
• Espagnole Sauce
• Au Jus
• Bearnaise Sauce

This recipe makes an amazing sauce for beef tenderloin and prime rib too - see all of my Sauces for Beef Tenderloin and Sauces for Prime Rib!

📋 Recipe