A typical recipe for the sauce may include onions, garlic, herbs, mushrooms, heavy cream, oil or butter, and the key ingredient of Marsala wine, which is often used as a demiglaze, or added last. When making the sauce, the wine can be added to the other ingredients immediately or as preferred by many, added at the end of the sauce making process.
To prepare the sauce using the preferred method, the meat is first seared and cooked in a bit of oil and is then removed from the pan. The sauce ingredients, excluding the wine (and heavy cream, if it is used), are added to the pan and are cooked with the meat juices and pan drippings for a short period. The marsala wine is added, which helps deglaze the pan and loosen any bits that have stuck to the pan. If heavy cream is to be used in the sauce recipe, it is added last. The sauce can be spooned over the meat and served immediately or the meat can be returned to the pan to allow the sauce to enhance the flavor of the meat.
