Easy Homemade Mint Sauce

Nothing is better than the refreshing yet sweet flavour of homemade mint sauce, and with only 3 ingredients, this is surely the easiest mint sauce in the world and you can use it in all sorts of ways too.

What’s to love about this recipe

• Homemade mint sauce leaves anything store-bought in the shade. It’s bright, refreshing and totally delicious.
• There are only 3 ingredients in my mint sauce recipe, so nothing tricky to buy.
• This is the easiest mint sauce recipe ever, ready in a matter of minutes.

Mint jelly was one of the first recipes I did here on Larder Love over ten years ago. It is delicious, but if you want something quick then this simple 3 ingredient mint sauce recipe is the way to go.

Roast lamb just wouldn’t be the same without mint sauce on the side and this homemade mint sauce recipe will have you coming back for more every time.

What does mint sauce taste like?

Mint sauce is both sweet and refreshingly zingy and cooling. Mint has a menthol flavour (think toothpaste/chewing gum) that is cooling and refreshing. The vinegar in mint sauce gives it a tanginess and the sugar brings sweetness.

Why do we serve mint sauce with lamb?

Lamb is quite a fatty and heavy meat and the astringency of mint sauce cuts through this and makes good roast lamb taste even better.

The complete list of ingredients and full instructions for making this recipe can be found on the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post.

Grow your own mint

Although you can so easily buy fresh mint in the supermarket why not grow your own. Mint is a super easy herb to grow, in a windowbox, in pots by the back door or even on your windowsill.

If you are planting mint in the garden be aware that it is highly invasive and will spread everywhere. I learned this the hard way decades ago when I had a herb business and planted out loads of different varieties of mint and we have been inundated with the damn stuff ever since in all the most unlikely places!

If you are planting mint in your garden keep it in a flower pot and sink that into the ground so the mint roots are encased in the pot and can’t start wandering around your beds.

Ingredients for homemade mint sauce

As I said earlier there are only 3 ingredients in this easy mint sauce recipe so you don’t have to search far to get them.

Mint – common garden mint is the standard mint used in this sauce recipe. You can use spearmint or peppermint and you will get differing flavours.

White wine vinegar – this is a good light flavoured vinegar that allows the mint to shine. Malt vinegar would overpower the mint. You can use cider vinegar instead if you don’t have white wine vinegar to hand.

Sugar – plain white sugar. Don’t use brown sugar as it has an almost caramel-type flavour that wouldn’t work well with this mint sauce recipe.

Water – just a dash, so it doesn’t really count as an ingredient.

How to make mint sauce

First let’s deal with the mint. You want to strip the leaves off the stems and chop them up finely with a sharp knife.

You want to chop up the mint leaves as finely as possible so folks aren’t chewing great chunks of mint with their food.

Resist the temptation to whiz up the mint in a food processor. Doing this runs the risk of the mint being turned into a complete mush. You want the marvelous fresh flavour of mint in your mint sauce so leave little bits of those flavoursome leaves.

Put your chopped-up mint leaves into a jug and add a little boiling water. This helps to really bring out the flavour of the mint.

While chopping the mint allows the mint essential oil to escape from the leaves to create the flavour for your mint sauce and adding boiling water just ramps up that mintiness even more.

Leave the mint leaves to infuse in the boiling water for 5 minutes.

Now simply add the white wine vinegar and the mint to the jug.

Stir well to dissolve the sugar.

Decant your homemade mint sauce into a sterilised bottle and keep it in the fridge.

How long does homemade mint sauce keep?

Your mint sauce will keep in the fridge for up to 6 months.

How to serve mint sauce

Of course everyone knows about the perfect partnership of mint sauce and roast lamb, but you can do so much more with this homemade mint sauce.

What meats go with mint sauce?

Okay so we have talked about lamb, now let’s look at other meats that marry well with mint sauce.

Roast chicken – it goes beautifully with the light delicate flavour of chicken, don’t overdo it though.

Turkey – yes you can bring out the mint sauce with this festive favourite.

Duck and Goose – both are rich meats that enjoy the zestiness of mint sauce to cut through their strong flavour.

Beef – A good old fashioned roast beef goes just as well with a spoonful of mint sauce as lamb does.

Pork – Pork is a sweet tasting meat and the mint sauce brings a real freshness to it.

Venison – A rich meat that likes the cut of that minty freshness.

What else can you do with mint sauce?

Serve some mint sauce with simple boiled potatoes. Just stir a teaspoon of mint sauce through a pan of boiled baby potatoes and a knob of butter and you have the most heavenly side dish.

Add a little mint sauce to roasted or boiled carrots.

Mint sauce added to boiled or steamed peas is wonderful and even added to good old mushy peas too!

Add some homemade mint sauce to your salad dressings for a lovely extra zing.

I like to make a cooling mint and yogurt sauce when I don’t have any homemade raita to hand and I’m serving a curry.

You can also use this mint and yogurt sauce instead of traditional tzatziki with Greek dishes.

Looking for other easy sauces to make? Then check out these recipes before you go;

Easy homemade raita

Homemade Greek tzatziki

Bloody Mary tomato ketchup

Homemade tartare sauce

Classic homemade mayonnaise

Want even more saucy inspiration? Then check out my Sauces and Drips section for a whole host of amazing and easy recipes.

Finally, if you do try this recipe don’t forget to leave a comment/star rating below as I just love to hear from readers. Want more Larder Love? Then follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter and sign up for my newsletter too of course.