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The Science of Thickening Agents
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Published 2025
Most sauces consist of water with thickening ingredients mixed or dispersed into it. Water is said to be the continuous phase in a sauce, while the thickening components are the dispersed phase. You have already encountered these terms in the discussion of emulsions in Chapter 6, and reviewing that discussion may help you understand the structure of sauces.
Water by itself flows easily, and we would not describe it as having any thickness. Water molecules contain only three atoms and thus are very tiny, so they tumble over one another easily and thus flow quickly. If large particles are mixed into the water, they get in the way of the water molecules, and the water doesn’t flow as easily. In other words, the particles of the dispersed phase slow down the flow of the water molecules (the continuous phase).