See this creamy goop? This is a piece of culinary magic that holds casseroles together, forms the base of soufflés, and can even be turned into a pasta sauce with a few extra ingredients. This is a white sauce — a very, very helpful thing to know in the kitchen. Just in case you've never made one before, or want a refresher, here's a quick photo tutorial!
A béchamel or white sauce is one of the classic French "mother sauces" that form the basis of much French cuisine. The original recipe for béchamel may be this one from Auguste Escoffier: "White roux moistened with milk, salt, onion stuck with clove [aka onion pique], cook for 18 minutes". A white sauce is perhaps the most commonly-used mother sauce for home cooks.
It's really very simple: A roux (a mix of equal weights butter and flour) is cooked together into a clumpy paste, then cooked with milk until smooth and creamy. The butter and flour swell as they are cooked in order to thicken the milk.
This relatively low-fat sauce is a good base for creamy sauces; it's often used in gratins like mac 'n' cheese, and with baked vegetables. It forms the base of the classic cheese soufflé, and it can be dressed up into a pasta sauce with a little extra liquid and some herbs. Knowing how to make a white sauce is a great technique for any cook; it's so easy and quick to make, and you know that you'll end up with a creamy, well-thickened sauce.
What You Need
Ingredients
50 grams (about 6 tablespoons) unsalted butter
50 grams (3 1/2 tablespoons) flour
2 cups (about 480 grams) milk
Equipment
Saucepan
Wooden spoon
Heavy-duty whisk
Instructions
1. Measure out the butter, flour, and milk. (Note: There is quite a lot of room for adjustment in the quantity of milk. For a very thick, sticky béchamel use about 1 1/2 cups. For a much looser, more liquid sauce, use 2 1/2 cups or even more, to get the consistency you want. Also, the more fat in the milk, the thicker the sauce will be.)
Warm the milk in a separate saucepan or in the microwave and set aside.
2. Place the butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat and melt it completely, but do not let it brown.
3. Dump in the flour and stir it quickly into the butter.
4. As you can see in the photo, the butter and flour will be a mixture of wet scrambled eggs at first.
5. Cook and stir the flour-butter mixture over medium heat for about 5 to 8 minutes. The butter and flour will dry out slightly, and turn just a bit darker to a more golden color. Do not let it brown or darken; we are creating a "blond" or golden roux, where the flour has just been cooked.
6. Pour in just a few tablespoons of the hot milk, just enough to moisten the flour and butter mixture. Stir thoroughly to loosen up the thick flour mixture.
7. Now grab the whisk and gradually add the rest of the milk to the loosened flour mixture, whisking constantly. Whisk vigorously!
8. You will be left with a thick, warm, creamy mix of flour, butter, and milk. From here you can add cheese, salt, and pepper to create a sauce for mac 'n' cheese, or the base for a soufflé.
Do you have any additional tips for making a béchamel? Any favorite recipes that include a white sauce?
Additional Notes
• If you use stock (vegetable, chicken, beef, veal, or shellfish) instead of milk as the primary liquid in this sauce, you will have another classic mother sauce: a velouté. We really love using this easy sauce for lower-fat, extra-tasty pasta sauces, like this Rich No-Cream Wild Mushroom Pasta Sauce.
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(Images: Faith Durand)
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This versatile sauce is so quick and reliable, and makes you wonder why there was ever a recipe that started with "open two cans of Campbell's Condensed Mushroom Soup". One note, since it is topical for me: if you are going to turn this into a cheese sauce be sure to add the cheese off heat, else you risk the sauce "breaking" into a curdled (yet still delicious) mess.
I'd like to add that I've made this gluten free and almost dairy free - I can eat butter but not cow's milk and have had success with plain/unsweetened soy or almond milks. I made several chicken/beef pot pies last winter that way.
@manjar and @sleeping spot thanks so much - those are both great tips!
Good to know sleeping spot! I have coconut milk right now. I'd bet that would work great too.
This is just a tip on roux. I've made em my whole life and always found that a liquid oil (usually olive oil, since I have it readily on hand) is a little easier to work with than butter. The butter solids like to brown before the flour so its easier to burn if you're new to it. Of course it won't have quite the same taste as with butter but for darker roux I've always found liquid oil easier to control the color without worrying about burn.
If you're making larger quantities of bechamel you can use 2oz fat (butter) and 2 oz flour for every quart of sauce. A good way to avoid burning your butter is to add a little olive oil. Also, shredded cheese is easier to incorporate into your sauce for mornay (cheese) sauce.
The photos are such a helpful tip for a novice home cook such as myself. Glad to know the scrambled egg look is normal!
I just learned to make bechamel recently and I'm surprised I didn't do it sooner. It's a fantastic thing to know how to do! This is a great tutorial.
Fantastic step by step tutorial. Really well done.
ooh this looks so good. i want to make some delicious mac & cheese. so, question: if that was what i wanted to do with the bechamel, how much cheese should i add, and how much pasta would this amount coat?
How funny, I made moussaka tonight, which of course would not be the same without the bechamel sauce on top! I make my bechamel sauce vegan based on potatoes instead of non-dairy milk-- it adds a lot more flavor. The recipe is provided here:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/10315/vegan-moussakas
The milk doesn't need to be hot - it always works fine for me with cold milk
Add sugar and you have pudding...
Making sauce is easy and tasty, eh? :) Next on the list should be Hollandaise sauce--impressive and still not too hard.
@cizzyc oh yes - I forgot to mention - the classic way to do this is with cold milk, of course. But I've found that warm milk helps quicken the end process, and for people who have never made a bechamel before, I think it's all a little easier with hot milk. But yes, cold milk works fine too; it just takes a little longer to come together.
This is one of the first "recipes" I learned as a young cook. I called it white gravy---I had no idea it was bechamel sauce :) I made tuna casseroles with it! Or chicken a la king.
I know people groan at the thought of dried chipped beef gravy on toast (or biscuits), but I ALWAYS keep a jar of dried beef in the pantry. On a cold, miserable day, chipped beef gravy is easy to make, warms you up, and sticks to the ribs. And I've never met a child that didn't like it.
I've usually made this with cold milk, too, but when I decide to infuse it with flavors like herbs and garlic, I heat it up. This is just the most amazing sauce to dress up things. My mom taught me to make it when I was pretty young to make Mac-n-Cheese, pre the boxed kind.
I first learnt to make 'white sauce' when I was about 8 yo. I can still remember stirring constantly and waiting to feel the 'skin' form on the bottom of the pan that indicated it was close to boiling.
Re the cold v hot milk. I learnt initially to make by adding cold milk and needing to add very slowly so it doesn't form lumps. The last few years I've changed to using hot milk. Firstly because you don't have to incorporate it as slowly as cold milk and secondly because the sauce will come back to boil much faster. Since you have to stir the sauce constantly after adding the milk as you wait for it to thicken, hot milk results in less stirring time. While using cold milk might involve a few more minutes if just making a cup or two, when making 6 cups for lasagne, you can be there for quite awhile.
In culinary school we used cold milk and then put the covered pot in the oven to bake instead of watching it on the stove. Worked out quite well and was very easy.
Am I the only one to always add nutmeg to my bechamel?