Béchamel Sauce

Béchamel is one of the five French mother sauces. It is a roux thickened sauce that can be very useful when making cream sauces, cheese sauces, or milk-based soups and chowders.

It  shares many characteristics with a Velouté with one key difference. While the Velouté uses stock or broth of some sort as the liquid that is thickened into a velvety sauce, the Béchamel uses milk instead. Other than that, they are made using a blonde roux of butter and flour and simmered until they are silky smooth, ready to serve as is or to be transformed into a delicious variation. 

A Béchamel is as versatile as the Velouté I shared with you earlier this year in that it can be incorporated into other dishes and amended with whatever sort of flavorings and enrichments that you dream up. If you have made Biscuits and Gravy, you have made a Béchamel that is seasoned with breakfast sausage incorporated into the roux to thicken milk and create a delicious and flavorful white gravy. If you have made homemade macaroni and cheese, you have probably created a Béchamel as the base for the cheese sauce that coats the pasta. 

Béchamel is a versatile building block, the starting point, for many delicious sauce variations. Once you have a basic Béchamel sauce, you can add Gruyère cheese to create a classic Mornay sauce or use your favorite blend of cheeses to create your very own cheese sauce. You can add a bit of heavy cream to create a Sauce Crème or sauteed onions to create Sauce Soubise. The delicious possibilities are nearly endless. 

Want to learn more about How to Make a Roux and Put it to Good Use? You can learn all about it and put that knowledge to delicious use in your kitchen by reading the technique post that describes the science behind it and how you can incorporate it into your recipes. 

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Béchamel Sauce

Jennifer from 1840 Farm

Béchamel is one of the five French mother sauces. It is a versatile building block, the starting point, for many delicious sauce variations. Once you have a basic Béchamel sauce, you can add Gruyère cheese to create a classic Mornay sauce or use your favorite blend of cheeses to create your very own cheese sauce. You can add a bit of heavy cream to create a Sauce Crème or sauteed onions to create Sauce Soubise. The delicious possibilities are nearly endless. 

Author: Jennifer from 1840 Farm

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons All-purpose flour (or alternate starch if you prefer)
• 2 cups whole milk (cold or at room temperature)

Instructions

• Melt the butter over medium heat in a saucepan. Once the butter has melted, add the flour (or alternate starch) and whisk or stir with a wooden spoon. Continue to stir as the flour and butter combine. Cook, moving the mixture constantly until it swells slightly and takes on a golden color. Do not cook the roux long enough to brown.
• Add the cold liquid in one addition to the saucepan and stir or whisk briskly to distribute the roux into the liquid. Continue to stir until the liquid comes to gentle boil. The mixture will thicken once it gently boils for a few minutes.
• Remove the saucepan from the heat. Taste for seasoning, adding herbs, salt, pepper, as needed.

Notes

How can you fix a roux thickened sauce that is too thick or not thick enough?

If your sauce ends up thickening too much for your liking, simply add in a tablespoon or two of additional liquid, stirring until it is smooth and exactly the texture you were aiming for. Repeat if necessary.

If your sauce doesn’t thicken as much as you want, it can be fixed by adding a bit more roux mixture. Rather than start in a clean pan and create a new roux, I like to use a microwave shortcut. In a small bowl, melt 1 tablespoon of butter. Stir in 1 tablespoon of flour (or the starch you used for your original roux) and microwave for 20 seconds. The mixture should bubble up and rise quite dramatically. Remove it from the microwave and stir a bit to break up any small lumps. Add this roux mixture to your sauce and stir to disperse it into the sauce. Bring the sauce to a gentle boil and your sauce will thicken a bit more thanks to the addition of more roux. Repeat if needed.

You can learn more about creating a roux and using it in your recipes including the science behind how it works by reading Technique: How to Make a Roux and Put it to Use.

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