How to Make a Great Bechamel Sauce

Making a great Bechamel Sauce is essential in being a good home cook, because it’s one of those building block sauces called the French Mother Sauces. These are “Mother” Sauces, as the five of them (Bechamel included) Serve as a substantial base for so many other sauces, and without the master of the mother sauces, you simply can’t move on to more complicated dishes and sauces.

So, enter Bechamel – the first Mother Sauce I learned how to make, and the first one that many people learn to make. While all the terms like “French Mother Sauce” and french words like bechamel may sound intimidating, a bechamel isn’t intimidating at all. A moderately well-trained cockatoo could probably make one, and if you can tie your shoelaces as an adult, I promise you that you can make a bechamel in just a few tries.

Bechamel is the base for many cheese sauces and gravies, especially southern style gravies that are essentially bechamel with some for of fatty stock (like sausage or bacon grease). You can also make a classic lasagna by starting with a basic and delicious bechamel.

A bechamel is basically a roux (flour and butter) mixed with milk and seasoned with nutmeg and salt/pepper. That’s it, and while that’s limited, technique is critical in making sure you come out with a bechamel that is the right consistency and taste. After just a few tries, you’ll be adding to bechamel and making some of your very own sauces from scratch!

Bechamel Sauce

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Ingredients

  

• 3 Tbsp. unsalted butter
• 3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 2 cups whole milk
• salt optional but recommended
• white or black pepper optional
• a pinch of grated nutmeg optional

Instructions

 

• In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the flour and whisk together to form a paste. Cook for 1 minute while whisking continuously. Remove from the heat.
• Add 1/4 cup of the milk and whisk until smooth. Repeat adding a little bit of milk at a time, whisking until smooth with each addition, until all of the milk is added.
• Increase heat to medium-high and bring to a boil while whisking constantly. Let simmer one minute and then take off the heat. The sauce has the right consistency when it will coat the back of a spoon.
• Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste or as desired.
• You can jazz this recipe up by adding shallots, onions, or even a little Parmesan cheese to give it a little more flavor and kick.