The phrase "a sort of essential" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe something that is considered necessary or fundamental in a somewhat vague or non-specific manner.
Example: "In this project, communication is a sort of essential for ensuring that everyone is on the same page."
Alternatives: "kind of crucial" or "somewhat vital".
Pretty soon, however, it wants to be known as a platform for ordering all sorts of "essential" products and services via mobile app.
The United States military is dependent on a network of orbiting spacecraft that perform all sorts of essential functions, including missile warning, GPS and guiding precision munitions, communication and even spying.
Chanpuru, simply a "mix," is an essential Okinawan preparation, a sort-of scramble also available here with wheat gluten and more Spam, that processed vestige of American military occupation.
The alternative is that Cameron is not actually so stupid as to think it's possible — or desirable — to erect a great 'encryption-banning firewall' around the U.K. that somehow outlaws all sorts of essential technologies and sandboxes the country from the rest of the connected world.
That, coupled with fiscal policies that prevent people from taking money out of the country, has led to import issues of all sorts of essential products.
We also looked at filming undercover, but that felt like a sort of betrayal of something essential about what I do, which is that it should be in good faith".
A certain quietism, a sort of poised patience, is actually essential to surfing.
The contextualization of a cognitive experience, a sort of setting or background, is essential to direct and facilitate learners to recall pre-existing ideas, to connect those to the new ones, and to move from common to scientific perspective.
Not legally of course, but in some sort of essential, ether-kind of way.
Wait, it gets weirder: Despite the bifurcation, we also accept that life and work are both sort of essential.
