Salsa brava, or brava sauce, is a Spanish sauce, and a critical ingredient of patatas bravas. Originally from Madrid, though now common throughout Spain, brava sauce has two many variants:
- The older version, which is claimed to be more authentic, made with wheat flour, onion, and hot paprika
- The more common version, which is fried tomato with hot paprika or chiles.
Olive oil is used to smooth both sauces, and the use of broth to season the sauce is also common. While the sauce is spicy compared to most Spanish cuisine, it is not very hot compared to the more pungent spices of the Americas and Asia.
The most famous dish with brava sauce is
patatas bravas
, but it is also used with
octopus
,
shrimp
and other
seafood
dishes. Diners should also beware that the practice of calling a mixture of
ketchup
and
mayonnaise
or
aioli
"salsa brava" is widespread.