Saffron Cream Sauce

Saffron Cream Sauce is simply made with ordinary base ingredients. What makes it special is that distinctive saffron flavor and gorgeous yellow color. It pairs especially well with your favorite pasta, rice, seafood and chicken but you'll want to experiment with even more ways to serve it.

Saffron is widely known as being the most expensive spice available and that's pretty much true. But keep in mind that a little bit goes a long way. That initial cost will be spread out over many recipes. When you look at it that way, it's not so bad.

What makes it worthy of the money is the unique flavor it will bring to your dishes. You might find yourself tempted to save it for s special occasion, but don't. Life is meant to be enjoyed every day. Call any night a date night and make this saffron sauce recipe to up your game in the kitchen.

Jump to:

• Ingredient notes
• How to make creamy saffron sauce
• Expert tips
• Equipment you may need
• Variations and substitutions
• FAQ's
• What to serve your saffron sauce with
• Storing your sauce
• 📖 Recipe
• Sauces & Marinades

Ingredient notes

• Saffron - A jar of saffron threads can usually be found in your local grocery store, but occasionally you may have to go to a specialty food store like a trader joes.
• Butter - We typically use unsalted and salted butter interchangeably and just adjust the salt in the recipe as needed.
• Flour - The plain all purpose type.
• Half-and-half - We find that you still get an amazingly creamy sauce without the use of heavy cream and you can save some calories that way. Our most popular sauce recipe is Cajun Cream Sauce and it calls for half-and-half as well.
• Garlic - always use freshly minced garlic if you can.
• White wine - A dry white wine is what you're looking for here. A sauvignon blanc or pinot grigio are perfect.
• Salt - Whatever you have on hand. I typically use kosher salt.
• Parmesan Cheese - You can add this optionally to the sauce, but I find that it adds a real depth of flavor. Again, use freshly grated when possible.

See recipe card for full ingredient list and quantities.

How to make creamy saffron sauce

1. Put the saffron threads in a small bowl and pour ¼ cup boiling hot water over it. This allows the saffron flavor to be released.
2. Melt butter over medium heat in a skillet or sauté pan and then add garlic, cooking and stirring for about 1-2 minutes.
3. Whisk the flour into the half-and-half and whisk until there are no lumps, being sure to scrape the bottom of the pan with your whisk.
4. Whisk the cream mixture into the butter slowly. Add the wine, salt and saffron water and threads.
5. Continue to whisk and cook until the mixture starts to thicken. At this point you can reduce to low heat.
6. Stir in the parmesan cheese and stir until melted and incorporated into the sauce.

Expert tips

• Measure the saffron threads loosely. In other words, don't try to pack them tightly into the measuring spoon.
• If you have saffron in your spice pantry be sure to check the date. It loses its unique flavor quickly once out of date.

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Equipment you may need

The number one most important piece of equipment you need for this saffron cream sauce recipe is a whisk. That's what enables you to make a velvety smooth sauce. We use a variety of whisk sizes and you can order those here.

You'll find that we recommend whisking all of our homemade sauces from the Creole Cream Sauce to the Gorgonzola Cream Sauce and Creamy Poblano Sauce. It's a key technique and you must have a whisk to do it.

Variations and substitutions

• If you don't keep wine on hand you can instead use chicken stock or broth or vegetable broth.
• Make it a saffron tomato cream sauce by adding about ½ cup of diced tomatoes.
• If you're one of those people that think all recipes need black pepper you can add no more than ½ teaspoon.
• We swear by our Flavor Bible for discovering new flavor combinations and it suggests basil, cardamom, cloves or coriander as good additions to anything with saffron.
• To make an ultra thick sauce you could use heavy whipping cream.

FAQ's

What to serve your saffron sauce with

• Lobster (like those lobster tails cooked in an air fryer) are an excellent pairing with creamy saffron sauce.
• It makes a creamy pasta dish with any variety of pasta.
• Serve it on top of a simple rice and then topped the whole thing with grilled shrimp like you see pictured below.
• It pairs beautifully with a simply prepared chicken.
• Top your grilled or smoked vegetables with it.

Storing your sauce

It can be kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3-4 days. You'll need to reheat it on very low heat, stirring constantly. Once it's hot the taste of saffron will be released again. You can then serve it with a variety of dishes as suggested above.

We do not recommend freezing this sauce.

📖 Recipe