To make béchamel, cook equal parts butter and flour into a pale roux, then whisk in a cup of warm milk per ounce of each and simmer until it coats a spoon. Season with salt, white pepper, and nutmeg. It is the French white mother sauce.
What is béchamel sauce?
Béchamel is the simplest of the five French mother sauces and the one most home cooks already make without naming it. It is milk thickened with a roux, which is just flour cooked in fat. Auguste Escoffier set it at the head of the white sauces when he codified the system in 1903, and almost every creamy sauce you can name is béchamel wearing a different coat.
The name is usually traced to Louis de Béchameil, a wealthy steward in the court of Louis XIV, though the technique is older than the man. What matters is the structure. Once the ratio lives in your hands, lasagne, gratin, croque monsieur, and macaroni cheese stop being separate recipes and start being one sauce pointed in different directions.
What goes in béchamel?
- ·1 oz butter (2 tbsp)
- ·1 oz all-purpose flour (about 1/4 cup)
- ·1 cup whole milk, warmed
- ·1/4 tsp salt
- ·Pinch of grated nutmeg
- ·White pepper to taste
Equal parts butter and flour by weight is the whole secret. One cup of milk to each ounce gives a medium pouring sauce. Drop to half a cup of milk and you get a thick béchamel that holds its shape between sheets of lasagne. Push to a cup and a half and you have a thin sauce for creaming vegetables.
How do you make béchamel?
- Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until it foams but does not brown.
- Whisk in the flour and cook the roux for two minutes, stirring the whole time, until it smells faintly of toast and loses its raw edge. Keep it pale, this is a white sauce.
- Pour in the warm milk in a slow stream, whisking constantly so no lumps form.
- Bring to a bare simmer and cook five to eight minutes, whisking often, until it coats the back of a spoon.
- Season with salt, white pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg. Strain through a sieve if you want it glass-smooth.
What should you know before making béchamel?
- Warm the milk before it goes in. Cold milk hitting a hot roux is the number one cause of lumps.
- Keep the heat gentle. A roux that browns becomes a blond or brown roux, which is delicious but is no longer béchamel.
- Whisk, do not stir. A whisk reaches the corners of the pan where flour likes to catch and scorch.
- Add nutmeg with a light hand. A pinch lifts the milk, a heavy grate makes it taste like eggnog.
Where did béchamel come from?
Béchamel reached its modern form in the French kitchens of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and was fixed into the canon by Auguste Escoffier, who organized the grand sauces of French cooking into five mothers and their families of derivatives. Béchamel sits among them as the white sauce, the parent of Mornay, cream sauce, and soubise.
Drawn from the public-domain text of Auguste Escoffier, Le Guide Culinaire (1903).
What can you make from béchamel?
Common questions.
What is the ratio for béchamel sauce?
Equal parts butter and flour by weight, whisked into one cup of milk per ounce of each. One ounce butter, one ounce flour, one cup milk makes a medium pouring sauce. Use half the milk for a thick sauce that holds in a lasagne.
Why is my béchamel lumpy?
The milk went in too fast or too cold. Warm the milk first and add it in a slow stream while whisking without stopping. If lumps already formed, push the sauce through a fine sieve and they vanish.
Can I use a different milk for béchamel?
Whole milk gives the best body. Two percent works and is slightly thinner. Unsweetened oat or soy milk make a workable dairy-free béchamel, though the flavor reads a little leaner. Avoid sweetened plant milks.
What is béchamel used for?
It is the base of lasagne, moussaka, croque monsieur, gratins, and creamed vegetables. Stir in grated cheese and it becomes Mornay or a cheese sauce for macaroni. One sauce becomes a dozen dishes.
How long does béchamel keep?
Three to four days in the fridge with plastic wrap pressed onto the surface so it does not skin over. Reheat gently with a splash of milk to loosen it. It can be frozen but tends to separate, so fresh is better.