[2][3][4] Before cooking, the raw meat is marinated for 5 to 15 days in a mixture of wine or vinegar, water, herbs, spices, and seasonings.

Regional variants of the dish include those from Baden, Franconia, Thuringia, Rhineland, Saarland, Silesia, and Swabia.

[6] Julius Caesar has been assigned a role in the inspiration for sauerbraten as he sent amphoras filled with beef marinated in wine over the Alps to the newly founded Roman colony of Cologne.

Several sources believe sauerbraten was invented by Charlemagne in the 9th century AD as a means of using leftover roasted meat.

Recipes from eastern regions of Germany closer to Poland and the Czech Republic tend to use vinegar as the base more frequently.

Red wine vinegar and wine typically form the basis of the marinade, which also includes earthy aromatic spices such as peppercorns, juniper berries, cloves, nutmeg, and bay leaves and less commonly coriander, mustard seed, cinnamon, mace, ginger, and thyme.

After the roast is cooked, the marinade is strained and returned to a saucepan where it is thickened (often with crushed gingerbread, lebkuchen—in particular Aachener Printen—or gingersnaps, flour, sour cream, brown sugar, and/or roux)[3][18] which add body and flavor to the sauce.

Before it closed in 1982, Lüchow's German restaurant in New York City used crushed gingersnap cookies to season and thicken the gravy of its sauerbraten, one of the favored dishes.