Simple step-by-step instructions on how to make easy bechamel sauce which is great for so many dishes! This is my go-to creamy sauce for mac and cheese, lasagna, and any other cream sauce recipe, and it's made with minimal ingredients!
If there's one thing about cooking that makes me nervous, it's making different sauces. With such a fine line between being successful or ending up with a curdled and useless mess, it's really important and can make or break any recipe!
Béchamel sauce is one of my favorites to make though because it's really easy and a sauce that every home cook should have in their kitchen experience. It can also be used in so many different recipes like my Turkey Pot Pie Mac and Cheese or this Creamed Kale.
Béchamel is a French sauce and consists of only a few ingredients, butter and flour, milk, and seasoning such as pepper or nutmeg. A traditional béchamel begins with a roux which is another French term for combining butter and flour together.
This is the base for our béchamel and what will ultimately thicken it.
Follow these easy steps for the perfect bechamel sauce recipe!
Making a basic béchamel sauce is a process that is easier to watch being done rather than to read the recipe in a book in my opinion. That's why the images below will help guide you through the different stages of making your easy bechamel sauce!
- Melting The Butter. I usually always use the amount of butter as a guide for how much sauce I'll need. Two tablespoons will yield about 1 1/2 cups of finished sauce but this will change if you're turning the sauce into something else like a cheese sauce for Mac and cheese.
Once you add your grated cheddar, because we want a really cheesy sauce you'll need to compensate with more milk so the final yield for a sauce like that might end up being closer to four cups. Melt butter over medium heat until it's fully melted and slightly frothy.
Have the rest of the ingredients on hand because the butter will burn easily and that's not good for our béchamel sauce, so turn down the heat to low until we add flour in the next step.
2. Flour Mixture. A roux consists of equal amounts of flour and butter, so if we used two tablespoons of melt butter then we will add two tablespoons of flour to the melted butter. All-purpose flour is good to use and you'll need a whisk for this part.
Turn the heat back up to medium and whisk the flour into the melted butter. It'll look very dry and lumpy at first but the butter will help dissolve the flour.
Whisking continuously will also help keep the roux lump free. The roux will eventually smooth itself out after a few minutes and the longer we cook it at this stage can determine the flavor and color of the finished béchamel.
This is also how to begin making gumbo but at this stage, the roux would be cooked longer to become a deep golden color. We just need it to be pale yellow in color so keep an eye on the heat and turn it down to low if you need to.
3. Adding The Milk. There are two very important parts to this step and those are, making sure the milk is warm and adding it very gradually, to begin with. The reasons are mainly to make sure there are no lumps when the bechamel is finished.
When you add the first half cup of milk the mixture will seize up, become lumpy and you'll probably wonder if it's ruined. But don't worry because this is just part of the process.
If you can imagine adding all of the milk at one time, then the lumps will have nothing to push against to smooth themselves out. They'll just float around the pan and you might end up making most of them disappear but not all no matter how much you whisk.
4. Seasoning the béchamel . Once you've added all of the milk, finish the bechamel with some salt and pepper. It's now ready for being added to the layers of meat and sauce for lasagna or you can add cheese for a creamy rich cheese sauce.
Any cheese will work even blue cheese which is fantastic poured over crispy french fries! Don't forget if you add cheese, you'll need to add more milk.
Cheese is also a thickener so it makes sense that if you add it, then you'll need to compensate with more liquid. I like my cheese sauce to be on the thin side but it's a personal call from here on so dip a spoon in the bechamel and see how it pours from it.
Another thing to be aware of is, as bechamel becomes cool it'll also become thicker. To bring it back to its original creamy state, just place it on a low heat and add a splash of milk while whisking and it'll be back to normal in five minutes.
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