Basic Béchamel Sauce (2024)

FAQs

What is the basic formula of béchamel sauce? ›

In its purest form, béchamel is comprised of butter and flour that have been cooked together (a mixture that's also known as a roux) and milk, with just a bit of seasoning. The result is a silky cream sauce that can be used either on its own or as the base for countless other sauces.

There are three basic kinds of ingredients in most sauces: a liquid, a thickening agent, and other flavoring and seasonings.

The term “white sauce” is a more general term that is sometimes used to refer to any white-coloured sauce, while “béchamel sauce” specifically refers to the white sauce made from a roux and milk. However, the two terms are often used interchangeably. In most cases, they refer to the same sauce.

The five French mother sauces are béchamel, velouté, espagnole, hollandaise, and tomato. Developed in the 19th century by French chef Auguste Escoffier, mother sauces serve as a starting point for a variety of delicious sauces used to complement countless dishes, including veggies, fish, meat, casseroles, and pastas.

The five mother sauces are hollandaise, tomato (sauce tomat), bechamel, Espagnole, and veloute. French chef Auguste Escoffier identified the five mother sauces, forever associating them with French cuisine. However, mother sauces are relevant in all modern cooking practices.

Once you've finished adding the milk, the sauce will start to thicken fairly quickly, but it's not ready until it's thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. If you're not sure, dip a spoon into the sauce. If the béchamel is properly thickened, it should stay on the back of the spoon.

It's not recommended to use self raising flour for white sauce. This is because self-raising flour contains salt and baking powder which may interfere with the flavour of the other ingredients. Best white sauce recipes: Pork and sage meatballs with white sauce.

What is the proper formula for roux? ›

Roux takes just a few minutes to make. Whether you are making just enough for a single dish, or a batch to divide and freeze for later, the proportions of ingredients are the same: 1 part oil or fat and 1 part all-purpose flour, by weight. If you have a kitchen scale, this is easy to measure.

The two main components of sauce Bechamel are milk and roux. What are the basic aromatics of sauce Béchamel? The basic aromatics in sauce Bechamel are onions, bay leaves, and cloves.

Most cooks make Béchamel sauce simply with butter, flour and milk. In a classic rendition of the sauce, however, you would use butter, flour (the thickening agent) and milk (the liquid), but the sauce would be flavored with onion, cloves, bay and nutmeg.