White Sauce

White sauce, or béchamel sauce, is a creamy sauce made with milk, butter, flour, and sometimes nutmeg.

It’s an essential sauce in French and Italian cuisine, used in lasagne, cannelloni, casseroles, gratins, and as a base recipe for many other sauces.

White sauce is easy to make in one pot in about 10 minutes.

Learning how to make white sauce at home is easy and fun.

Most importantly, it will make your vegetable or vegetarian lasagna, cannelloni, casseroles, and gratin recipes one hundred percent more delicious.

Made with flour, butter, and milk, white sauce, known as béchamel in Europe, is a pillar of French cuisine.

Famous French chef August Escoffier classified it as one of the “mother sauces” (i.e., base sauces from which you can derive other sauces or daughter sauces).

You probably know white sauce from Italian food, though, as it is widely used in lasagna and many other recipes.

In this blog post, we’ll show you how to make a creamy, delicious, and versatile béchamel in about 10 minutes in one pot.

If you want to consume less dairy, butter, and saturated fat, try our olive oil-based, vegan white sauce.

Quantities are in the recipe box at the bottom of the page.

1. Gather the ingredients

You’ll need all-purpose flour, milk, butter, salt, black pepper, and grated nutmeg.

2. Mix butter and flour

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Remove from the heat, sift in the flour, and whisk or stir with a silicone spatula until combined.

Return to the heat and cook the butter-flour mixture for 2 minutes while stirring.

Tip: This is called white roux. Don’t allow the mixture to overcook and brown. It should remain white or pale yellow.

3. Add milk

Pour in the milk slowly, while stirring, and cook until the sauce is smooth and creamy – about 5 minutes.

When you reach your desired consistency, remove the pan from the heat and season with salt, black pepper, and a grating of nutmeg.

Tip: The temperature of the milk is not important. It can be hot, cold, or at room temperature.

The best way to cool bechamél is to transfer it to a bowl and let it cool, stirring occasionally to prevent a patina from forming on the surface.

To speed things up, you can cool down the sauce in a cold bain-marie.

Thick or thin?

Different recipes call for various types of white sauce. For instance, if you make lasagna or pasta bake, we recommend a medium béchamel sauce.

If you make croquettes or veggie meatballs, make a thick one. If you mix white sauce with cheese like parmesan or ricotta, we’d recommend a thinner one.

To change consistency, adjust the ratio of flour to liquids.

• Thick white sauce: add 2 more tablespoons of flour, and keep butter and milk constant.
• Medium or basic white sauce: 4 tbsp flour – 4 tbsp butter – 2 cups milk.
• Thin white sauce: add 1 to 2 less tbsp of flour.

Cheese sauce

Make the white sauce, turn the heat off, and add about 1 cup of shredded cheese, stirring until the cheese melts.

You can also use shredded dairy-free cheese or grated parmesan cheese.

For cauliflower mac and cheese or mac and cheese, add shredded cheddar cheese, then toss with the cauliflower or macaroni.

You can cut the milk with half cream or dairy-free cream for an even richer flavor.

Mushroom sauce

Add 1 cup of sautéed mushrooms and 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese, and blend with an immersion blender until smooth.

Black-truffle béchamel

Make a classic white sauce, then add a tablespoon of truffle oil. This one is my personal favorite for cauliflower gratin and pasta bakes.

Questions

You can make white sauce in advance, cool it down, and keep it in a bowl covered with plastic wrap touching the sauce for four days.

The sauce thickens as it cools down, so you might want to reheat it before use.

If it is lumpy, blend it with an immersion blender.

If it is too thick, add a splash of milk as it reheats.

Similar recipes