It is so named after Louis de Béchamel, chief steward to King Louis XIV in France. While often featured in Italian cookbooks of the renaissance period (as the glue sauce – salsa colla), it was renamed in 1651 when published in the cookbook Le Cuisinier Francois, considered to be a foundation of French cuisine.
Once the roux is properly cooked, the next step is to whisk in milk. (You may have noticed at this point that this sauce is pretty much just fat, flour, and more fat—that’s why its so good, folks.) Milk is what turns the roux into a sauce. But you can’t just dump it all in at once. To create a smooth consistency (a necessity when it comes to béchamel), you need to gradually whisk in the milk. If you pour it all in at once, it will get clumpy and awkward. No one wants an awkward sauce. But we do want a flavorful sauce, so we need to continue to cook the béchamel, whisking it frequently, until it thickens to the degree that we want it to. Different recipes will call for different amounts of milk and different coking times, which will produce different consistencies. For example, when making a croque monsieur, you want the sauce to be thick and almost spreadable, but for lasagna you want it to be thinner and almost pourable.
Once youve reached the degree of thickness youre after, its time to season the béchamel with salt and nutmeg. Yeah: nutmeg! It’s not a flavor you should necessarily be able to pick out if you didn’t already know it was there, but nutmeg lends this otherwise kind of one-note sauce a considerable amount of warmth, spice, and complexity. It’s like putting a coat on over your favorite sweater. The whole situation gets cozier.
Béchamel is thick, clinging to food in the way that a good sauce should—and it’s that roux we have to thank for that. The first step in making a béchamel is to create a roux, a mixture of flour and fat that acts as a thickening agent. (If youve made gravy on Thanksgiving, youve probably made a roux before.) To make a roux for béchamel, you simply heat the fat—in this case butter—and whisk in roughly equal parts flour, cooking it just long enough to get some of the raw flavor out of the flour but not so long that it takes on any color. (In some other instances—gumbo being one of them—a roux will be cooked for an extended period of time, until it takes on a deep, dark color and nutty flavor, but thats not what we want here.)
In its purest form, béchamel is comprised of butter and flour that have been cooked together (a mixture thats also known as a roux) and milk, with just a bit of seasoning. The result is a silky cream sauce that can be used either on its own or as the base for countless other sauces.
But really, all you need to know is that you have a versatile, creamy white sauce that can act as vehicle for whatever flavor you want to deliver. You can load it with herbs or cheese or lemon zest or chile powder. You can take it in any direction you’d like. That’s the beauty of béchamel.
03/5Origin of Béchamel sauce?
Traditional Bechamel | Bechamel | How to Make a Bechamel Sauce | Bechamel Sauce | White Sauce
FAQ
Why is béchamel the king of all sauces?
Who invented béchamel sauce?
What is the English name for béchamel sauce?
What’s the difference between béchamel and white sauce?
Is Béchamel sauce the same as white sauce?
Béchamel sauce is sometimes called White Sauce in English cookbooks. Both are made from all-purpose flour, butter, and milk. As a mother sauce, béchamel has several daughter sauces like: White sauce should not be confused with the French beurre blanc sauce which literally translates to “Butter White”. To compare the two:
Where did béchamel sauce come from?
While there are many theories about its origin, béchamel sauce appears to date back to the age of the Medicis, and to when Marie de Medici was sent to France to marry King Henry IV. Accompanying her was a chef that made a cream sauce that had been used in the Italian regions of Tuscany and Emiglia Romagna.
How many béchamel sauces are there?
There are five mother sauces, and of those five béchamel might be our favorite. In its purest form, béchamel is comprised of butter and flour that have been cooked together (a mixture that’s also known as a roux) and milk, with just a bit of seasoning.
How do you make béchamel sauce?
The result is a silky cream sauce that can be used either on its own or as the base for countless other sauces. Béchamel is thick, clinging to food in the way that a good sauce should—and it’s that roux we have to thank for that. The first step in making a béchamel is to create a roux, a mixture of flour and fat that acts as a thickening agent.