Basic Béchamel Sauce

In my quest to make Croque Monsieur for lunch today, I have to master the Béchamel! Béchamel is one of the 5 mother sauces in French cooking, meaning it is one of the base sauces from which many others can be derived. 

The 5 mother sauces are: Béchamel, Velouté, Tomato Sauce, Hollandaise and Españole Sauce. I am pretty good at making a basic Tomato Sauce, but in all honesty, I have never made any of the others except from a packet!  Scandalous! 

A basic Béchamel Sauce (often just called "white sauce") is a milk or cream based sauce that is thickened using a blonde (or white) roux. A roux is just a mixture of butter or oil and flour that is combined and cooked for a period of time, then used as a thickening agent in sauces. A blonde roux is just a roux that has not been cooked for very long, in fact hardly at all. This compares to a brown roux, the thickening agent in gumbo, which is cooked for 30 minutes or longer depending on the chef.

Everyone seems to have an opinion as to what proportions of flour to butter to milk should be used. I have experimented with a few different combinations this week, and the one that I found works best for me is 1 tablespoon butter to 1 tablespoon flour to thicken 1 cup of milk.  Same concept and proportions apply when making gravy too.

Also, stay away from 1% or skim milk and use whole milk.  Your Béchamel will work using a 1% (I did that Thursday when I made Mac'n'Cheese) but a creamier milk produces a creamier sauce.  And it is not like we eat this stuff everyday, right? So go for it!  As Julia Child said, "Everything in moderation - including moderation."  I love that quote.

The sauce that the 1:1:1 ratio produces has the creamy consistency I want - it is pourable and perfect for gratins or adding cheese to to make a Mornay Sauce. The mark that you should shoot for is a lumpfree sauce that coats the back of a spoon.

Basic Béchamel Sauce

In a sauce pan, warm milk over medium heat until just below the boiling point.  Remove from heat and set aside.

In a separate sauce pan, melt the butter over a medium-high heat.

Add the flour, and stir around vigorously with a wooden spoon.  

The roux will look creamy at first, then a bit grainy.  Once you see that you will  know that the butter has absorbed the flour and the roux is ready.  

Remove from heat immediately so as not to add any colour to the roux.

Slowly start to add the hot milk to the roux pan, stirring constantly, and scraping the bottom of the pan to make sure you incorporate all the roux.  Bring to a boil over medium heat, then cook for 2-3 minutes.

Once the sauce boils it is at its maximum thickness, so if you find your sauce is too thick (unlikely) add a bit more milk, or if it is too thin, add a bit more roux.  Season with salt, white pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.