Jamie Oliver Red Wine Jus

Jamie Oliver’s red wine jus is a quick pan sauce made with garlic, rosemary, a bay leaf, 250ml of red wine and a vine of cherry tomatoes, built in the same pan you fried your steaks in. It takes 10 minutes, serves 4 and uses just 6 ingredients.

This red wine jus recipe is published on jamieoliver.com as part of Jamie Magazine, developed by food writer Sarah Tildesley. The site describes it as “an easy classic” to “team with steak and mash for cold-weather comfort food.” It’s one of the simplest sauce recipes on the site, which is probably why it’s the one people keep coming back to.

The technique that makes this work is deglazing. The wine goes into the hot pan where the steaks cooked, which lifts all the caramelised meat juices stuck to the base. Those browned bits dissolve into the wine as it bubbles, and that’s where most of the flavour comes from. Without that steak pan, this would just be a wine and tomato reduction.

Jamie Oliver Red Wine Jus

Recipe by Pinch PerfectCourse: SidesCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy

Servings

4

servings

Prep time

2

minutes

Cooking time

8

minutes

Calories

65

kcal

Total time

10

minutes

There’s no butter, no flour and no stock cube in this jus — just wine, tomatoes and herbs cooked in the residual fat from the steaks. The cherry tomatoes burst and thicken the sauce naturally, so it coats the back of a spoon without needing any other thickener.

Ingredients

• 1 clove of garlic

• A few sprigs of fresh rosemary

• 1 bay leaf

• 250ml red wine

• 1 vine of ripe cherry tomatoes

• 1 good splash of organic chicken stock (optional)

Directions

• Rest the steaks: Once you’ve finished frying your steaks, remove them from the pan and leave to rest.
• Build the base: Meanwhile, peel and finely slice the garlic, then pick and chop the rosemary leaves. Add both to the frying pan with the bay leaf.
• Deglaze and reduce: Pour in the wine and allow it to bubble for a couple of minutes, then add the tomatoes, squashing some with a fork so the juices all mix together. If it looks too thick, add the chicken stock (if using), or a splash of water.
• Serve: Season to taste and spoon over your steak.

FAQs

How do you make Jamie Oliver’s red wine jus at home?

The whole recipe depends on the pan you cooked the steaks in. Those browned, caramelised bits stuck to the base are called fond, and they’re packed with concentrated meat flavour. You slice garlic and chop rosemary directly into that hot pan, which blooms the aromatics in the residual fat within seconds.

Then the wine goes in and does the real work. As it bubbles, it dissolves the fond and reduces by about half, concentrating the flavour. The cherry tomatoes go in last, and you crush a few with a fork to release their juice. The acidity from the tomatoes and wine cuts through the richness of the steak, which is why this jus works better than a heavy cream sauce for a simple midweek dinner.

Does this red wine jus work with lamb as well as steak?

It works brilliantly with lamb because rosemary and red wine are two of lamb’s natural partners. If you’re making it for lamb chops or a rack, cook the meat in the same frying pan, rest it, then build the jus exactly as written. The lamb fat in the pan adds a slightly sweeter, gamier note to the sauce than beef drippings do.

For a roast leg of lamb, you’d need to scale up. Double the wine to 500ml and use a full vine of tomatoes, then let it reduce for longer until it coats the back of a spoon. Oliver’s own Christmas Cookbook uses a different approach for roast gravy (beef bones, Bordeaux and Marmite), but this quick jus is better suited to pan-fried lamb where you want something ready in 10 minutes.

What type of red wine should I use for this jus?

Use something you’d actually drink. A decent bottle of Merlot, Shiraz or Cabernet Sauvignon works well because they have enough body and tannin to stand up to the reduction. Cooking concentrates both the flavour and the faults in a wine, so a cheap bottle with an unpleasant aftertaste will taste worse, not better, once it’s reduced by half.

You don’t need to spend more than £7 or £8 though. The garlic, rosemary and tomatoes add so much flavour that the wine doesn’t need to carry the sauce on its own. Avoid anything very oaky or heavily spiced because those flavours intensify during cooking and can overpower the meat.

Can I make this red wine jus ahead of time?

You can, but it loses something. The jus is at its best spooned straight from the pan over a resting steak because the fresh tomatoes and rosemary still have brightness to them. If you reheat it, the herbs go dull and the tomatoes break down further into a smoother, less interesting sauce.

If you need to prep ahead, make it to the point where the wine has reduced and the tomatoes are crushed, then take it off the heat. Reheat gently when the steaks are resting and add a splash of fresh water or stock to loosen it. Don’t boil it hard on the reheat or the wine turns bitter and the garlic can catch.

What’s the difference between a jus and a gravy?

A jus is thinner and more concentrated than a gravy. It’s essentially meat juices and wine reduced until the flavour is intense, with no flour or cornflour to thicken it. A gravy starts with the same pan drippings but adds flour to make a roux, then stock or water to build volume, giving you a thicker, more pourable sauce.

This recipe sits somewhere between the two. The crushed cherry tomatoes add body that a pure jus wouldn’t have, so it’s not as thin as a classic French jus but nowhere near as thick as a Sunday roast gravy. Oliver’s Christmas Cookbook has a proper Dark Bone Gravy recipe that takes 4½ hours with beef bones and Bordeaux — that’s the other end of the spectrum from this 10-minute version.

Can I use this red wine jus for steak without frying the steaks first?

The recipe is built around the pan you cooked the steaks in, so without those caramelised meat juices at the bottom you’re missing the base layer of flavour. If you’ve grilled or barbecued the steaks instead of frying them, you can still make it, but start by heating a tablespoon of butter in a clean pan until it foams before adding the garlic and rosemary.

The butter won’t give you the same depth as steak drippings, though it’ll still be a good sauce. Another option is to sear the steaks in the pan for 30 seconds on each side to build up some fond, then finish them on the grill or in the oven while you make the jus in the same pan. That way you get the best of both methods.