How to Make Béchamel Sauce

 

Béchamel Sauce slathered on a Croque Monsieur 

Béchamel Sauce, which I used in the previous post is one of the 5 mother or foundational sauces in classic French cooking.  Growing up, I just knew it to be White Sauce, which was the basis for a bunch of recipes I was learning to cook from my mom.  I’ve probably been making one version or another of this sauce since I was around 8 or 9 years old, so the muscle memory to cook it goes pretty deep. 

The recipe below makes a thick consistency so that it works when you broil the Croque Monsieur/Madame.  Other recipes will use a looser, more liquidy preparation.

Béchamel Sauce (classic white sauce)

 

Prep Time: 15-20 minutes

Serves: 4 people for recipe above

 

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp Butter

1/3 cup Flour

1 1/2 cups Whole Milk (do not use low-fat or skim)

1/2 tsp Salt, kosher

1/4 tsp Pepper (white is preferable but not mandatory)

1 tsp dry Ground Mustard

 

 

Butter + Flour = Roux 

Melt the butter in a saucepan.  Whisk in flour and let cook for 2-3 minutes until the flour is completely incorporated.  This is a roux (see photo).  

 

Add a little bit of milk to the roux

 

Gradually add the milk, at first one tablespoon at a time.  Stir.  Let all the milk get absorbed into the butter-flour mixture.  It will start to resemble the paste that you used in elementary (primary) school. 

 

Continue adding more milk to the mixture

 

Then, continue to add more milk, still one tablespoon at a time.  Stir constantly.  As it is soaked up into the roux after each addition, it slowly becomes creamier.  At this stage, it looks like a rough purée. 

Almost done

 

At this point, it is possible to add the milk in slightly greater amounts, until all the milk has been incorporated.  Continue to stir or the sauce will develop lumps.  Add salt and pepper.  For this recipe with the Croque Monsieur/Madame, I added the dry ground mustard.  For other recipes, nutmeg or no extra seasoning is preferable. The recipe should instruct you as to what to do.

 Yield for this recipe - a little over 1 cup or 16 oz

 

If the mixture seems too thick (remember for this version it will go on top of a sandwich and be grilled so you don’t want it to be too soupy), you can add more milk to thin it out. If you do decide to do this, you will need to add the additional liquid by tablespoons again and completely incorporate so that your sauce does not fall apart.

 

Buon appetito!