Hey there Honey's and New-Bees!

Béchamel sauce is that thick, creamy, white sauce that’s used as a base for many other sauces and casseroles. If you’ve never heard of it, don’t be alarmed by the fancy french name, béchamel sauce is just a basic white sauce that’s pretty easy and straightforward to make – so much so that you probably won’t even need a recipe after making it a couple of times. You just need to remember that’s it’s an even ratio of butter to flour, with warmed cream mixed into it – usually at last 1 cup but you can add more if you want a thinner sauce and less for a thicker sauce.

Béchamel is so fundamental because it serves as the base for many other sauces such as Mornay Sauce, Nantua Sauce, even nacho cheese sauce and sooo much more. It’s  also one of five french “mother sauces”, which are essential skills every cook should add to their repertoire at some point. I’ll follow up with more posts over the next couple of weeks going over the basics for each of the fives mother sauces, but wanted to start with béchamel since I consider it the easiest of the five and because I found that it’s the one that most drastically improved my overall cooking skills.

So if you’re looking for an easy way to up your cooking skills, this is it! And please let me know in the comments how it turned out for you!

In a medium size sauce pan melt 3 tablespoons of butter on low heat. Other variations will call for clarified butter or oil, however, unless the recipe says otherwise, stick with butter.

A common question that came up while I was learning béchamel was whether you can use shortening instead of butter – put simply the answer is NO, shortening will alter the flavor and leave a weird, waxy taste on the top of your mouth – so just say no to shortening.

While your butter is melting, warm your cream in a separate pot on low heat. Although you don’t absolutely have to warm your cream, it’s highly recommended as it will prevent your cream from splattering when you add it to the warm roux mixture, and will also facilitate the thickening process. Remember the cream only needs to be warmed slightly, definitely not boiling or scalding hot.

Once the butter has completely melted, gradually whisk in your flour. I find it much easier to gradually add your flour rather than dumping it all in at once, as I find it incorporates into the butter better and prevents the flour from burning. Either way once all your flour has been added, make sure to stir the roux consistently until all the flour has absorbed into the butter and your roux is a pale-yellow color.

Continue to cook for another couple of minute (2-4 minutes) on low heat to make sure your flour cooks and so you don’t end up with a raw flour taste.

Once your roux has cooked for a couple of minutes, gradually whisk in your cream. It’s really important that you add the cream gradually and whisk continuously in order to prevent the sauce from clumping – it’s pretty unappetizing to have sauce with clumpy chunks of flour. So take it slow and enjoy the process of watching your sauce start to thicken right before your eyes.

Now at this point your sauce is going to be pretty bland, so go ahead and add a bay leaf (make sure to discard before serving),  a little salt, and a dash of cayenne pepper (optional) and continue to let your sauce cook until it’s thick and creamy, then use as needed. 

See that was pretty easy right?! After making this recipe a couple of times you probably won’t need to follow a recipe and will be able to make this with your eyes closed. The more you make it the easier it becomes, and you’ll notice that this one little skill will go a long way in improving your cooking skills!