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Sauces & Condiments

Béchamel sauce

Published: 03.22.2022 » Last updated: 03.22.2022

We rarely make lasagna without Béchamel sauce. I used to prepare it but, these days, my daughter, Alex, has taken over that task.

Ladling Béchamel sauce into a pan of lasagna with ragu

Is that not Hollandaise sauce? No, that is Béchamel sauce. They both belong to the mother sauces of French cuisine and they both contain copious amounts of butter, but Hollandaise sauce and Béchamel sauce are not the same.

Hollandaise sauce is an emulsion. Egg yolks are added so that lemon juice and melted butter can be combined without separating. Béchamel sauce does not contain eggs. It has flour. Butter and flour are cooked to form a roux to which milk is added.

Melting butter and adding flour to make roux

Roux? Yes, it’s pronounced roo. You melt butter in a pan and, once fully melted but without allowing milk solids to separate from the fat, you add an equal amount of flour all at once.

Mixing melted butter and flour to make roux

You mix the butter and flour together until it forms into a paste. The paste is cooked before the liquid is added. Roux can be white, blonde or dark depending on how long the butter and flour are cooked together. To make Béchamel sauce, you need a blonde roux.

Adding milk to roux to make Bechamel sauce

Once the roux is ready, you start adding milk. Slowly and with constant stirring.

Thinning out roux with milk

Don’t worry if the mixture turns lumpy. That’s how it should be after the first addition of milk. Just keep adding more milk, slowly and with non-stop stirring.

Making Bechamel sauce at home

The yellowish mixture will turn off-white after a minute or two but it will still be lumpy and too thick to be pourable. So, you continue to add more milk until the mixture acquires the consistency of a thick but pourable sauce. Then, you season. And, as a finishing touch, you stir in a little grated nutmeg.

Béchamel Sauce

Connie Veneracion
A roux with equal amounts of butter and flour to which milk is added until a thick sauce forms.
Bechamel sauce sprinkled with nutmeg
Print Pin Recipe
Prep Time 1 min
Cook Time 10 mins
Total Time 11 mins
Course Sauce
Cuisine French
Servings 4 cups

Ingredients
  

  • ⅓ cup butter
  • ⅓ cup all-purpose flour
  • 3 cups milk - fullfat milk was used here
  • salt
  • pepper
  • nutmeg

Instructions
 

  • In a saucepan, melt the butter.
  • Add the flour, all at once.
  • Stir the butter and flour mixture until smooth.
  • Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for five minutes to make a blonde roux.
  • Pour the milk in a thin stream, mixing as you pour. Don’t worry if the mixture turns out something like mashed potato at this point.
  • Keep pouring the milk, and stirring, until all the milk has been fully incorpotated.
  • Season the Béchamel sauce with salt (see notes after the recipe) and pepper.
  • Stir in a pinch of grated nutmeg.

Notes

We use herb salt at home and that was what went into the Béchamel sauce. You may use plain salt.
Print Pin Recipe
Keyword roux

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Newsletter department

  • #18 Cooking for Lent
    03.23.2023
    A few readers have emailed asking me to post recipes for Lent, and I tell them there is NO need for NEW recipes. Instead, they should try digging into the seafood, mushrooms and tofu recipe archives.

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Connie Veneracion, Chiang Mai, 2020

Hi, I’m Connie!

Welcome to Umami Days, a blog that advocates innovative home cooking for pleasurable everyday dining. No trendy diets, no food fads and definitely no ludicrous recipe names like crustless quiche, noodleless pho or chocolate lasagna.

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