Béchamel sauce is probably the most commonly used of the five French mother sauces. It’s a simple white sauce that I use all the time, and a sauce that every home cook should have in their recipe collection. This sauce is used as the base for many cheese sauces and it adds the “cream” to most things creamy!
Learn How to make béchamel sauce
Making a Roux
A roux is a thickener that consists of equal parts of cooked butter (or some other fat) and flour.
The photo below shows the proper color and consistency for the roux for béchamel sauce. It is cooked for a couple of minutes to cook out the flavor of the flour. The longer the roux is cooked, the more brown in color and more nutty in flavor it becomes, but it has less thickening power. For béchamel sauce, we need a light colored roux so that is doesn’t discolor the white sauce and so that it has a lot of thickening power.
In a saucepan, over medium heat, warm 4 cups of milk until it almost comes to a boil. Whisk hot milk, 1 cup at a time, into the roux and continue whisking until the sauce thickens.
Artzy Foodie Tip: Heating the milk will keep lumps from forming and produces a smoother sauce.
Artzy Foodie Pro Tip: Add fresh herbs for extra flavor.
Once the sauce has thickened, remove the saucepan from the heat. For a richer, more decadent sauce, whisk in two egg yolks, one at a time. Finally, season to taste with salt.
This creamy sauce is the base for so many dishes! Add cheese to make a cheese sauce, add sausage to make gravy, add it to your lasagne, toss it with some pasta and some fresh herbs, add it to spinach for creamed spinach, or if you want to make your broccoli or cauliflower tastier, smother it in béchamel sauce!
If you like this post, you might like: Creamy Cauliflower
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Béchamel Sauce
Ingredients
- 5 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup all purpose flour
- 4 cups whole milk
- 2 egg yolks
- 2 tsp kosher salt
Instructions
- In a saucepan, over medium heat, warm the milk until it is just about to boil
- In a separate saucepan over medium heat, warm the butter until melted
- Gradually add the flour and whisk until smooth
- Cook the mixture for 2–3 minutes, keeping a close eye on it to avoid burning
- Add the hot milk to the butter mixture, 1 cup at a time, constantly whisking
- Cook 12 minutes, stirring constantly
- Turn heat off
- Slowly add egg yolks, 1 at a time, and whisk until incorporated
- Stir in salt
