What Is Monkey Gland Sauce? The South African Sauce Explained

Fire up a braai in a South African home in Britain and, sooner or later, a bowl of monkey gland sauce appears alongside the meat. It is one of those sauces that says home the moment it hits a hot steak, sweet and sharp and glossy, the smell of chutney and Worcestershire mingling with the smoke. For many South Africans abroad it is inseparable from a good grill and a table of friends and family.

The name always earns a laugh, and explaining it to a curious guest, no, there really is no monkey and no gland in it, is half the fun. What there is instead is a proper taste of a South African steakhouse and a home kitchen alike, the kind of sauce that turns an ordinary piece of meat into something worth gathering round. Making it far from home is a small, cheerful way of keeping that braai tradition alive.

What Monkey Gland Sauce Actually Is

Monkey gland sauce is a South African sauce for meat, tangy, fruity and a little sweet, served most often with steak but just as happily with burgers, chops and anything off the grill. The first thing to say, because the name invites the question, is that it contains no monkey and no glands of any kind. It is an entirely ordinary sauce made from familiar ingredients, and the strange name is a piece of colonial-era humour, a joke or legend attached to the sauce long ago that simply stuck.

What gives monkey gland sauce its character is the combination of tomato and onion for body, garlic for depth, fruit chutney for sweetness, and Worcestershire sauce and vinegar for that sharp, savoury tang. Spices round it out, and the whole thing is cooked down until it is thick, dark and glossy. The result is a sauce that is sweet and sharp at the same time, rich rather than hot, and generous over a good piece of meat. The fruit chutney is really the heart of it, lending a jammy, fruity sweetness that sets the sauce apart from an ordinary tomato relish or a plain steak gravy.

It is a mainstay of South African steakhouses and home braais alike, and it sits comfortably in the wider world of South African food. Many people first meet it as the sauce ladled over a steak in a restaurant, then go on to make their own version at home, because it is so simple and so reliably good. For all the fuss the name causes, it is at heart a humble, homely sauce, the sort of thing that lives in a jar in the fridge and gets reached for again and again.

How Monkey Gland Sauce Is Made and Served

Making monkey gland sauce is straightforward and needs no special equipment. Onion and garlic are softened in a pan, then tomato is added, along with fruit chutney, Worcestershire sauce and vinegar, and spices to season. The mixture is simmered gently so the flavours come together and the sauce reduces to a thick, pourable consistency. Cooks adjust it to taste, some leaning sweeter with more chutney, others sharper with extra Worcestershire or vinegar, and a little chilli can be added for those who like some heat.

Once made, it is used generously. It is poured over grilled or pan-fried steak, spooned onto burgers, brushed over meat on the braai, or set out as a dipping sauce at the table. It pairs especially well with beef, but it is just as good with lamb chops, chicken and boerewors, and some people even use it as a marinade before the meat goes on the heat. Because it keeps well, many people make a batch and store it in the fridge, ready for the next grill.

It is worth noting for anyone avoiding certain ingredients that monkey gland sauce may contain gluten and fish or anchovy, both of which come from the Worcestershire sauce, so it is always sensible to check the labels of the ingredients you use. Otherwise it is an easy, forgiving sauce, hard to get wrong and easy to adjust to your own taste, which is a large part of why it has stayed so popular in South African kitchens.

Why the Name Monkey Gland Sauce

The name is the most talked about thing about this sauce, and understandably so. To be completely clear, there is nothing unusual in monkey gland sauce; it is tomato, onion, garlic, chutney, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar and spices, and nothing more exotic than that. The name comes from a colonial-era joke or legend rather than from any ingredient, and over time it simply became the accepted name for this particular sweet-sharp meat sauce.

Rather than putting people off, the name has become part of the sauce's charm. It is a firm favourite in South African cooking precisely because it delivers so much flavour from such humble ingredients, and the curious name only adds to the fun of serving it, especially to guests hearing it for the first time. Once you have tasted it, the name matters far less than the way it lifts a plate of grilled meat, and it quickly becomes just another well loved part of the South African table.

Where to Buy Monkey Gland Sauce in the UK

Monkey gland sauce is sold ready made in bottles, and it is also easy to make at home, so you have two good options in Britain. Shops that serve South African and wider African customers often carry bottled monkey gland sauce, along with the fruit chutney and Worcestershire sauce you would need to make your own. If you would rather cook it from scratch, the ingredients, tomato, onion, garlic, chutney, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar and spices, are all easy to gather. Do check the labels for gluten and fish or anchovy if those matter to you. You can find African food stores near you to see what is stocked nearby.