can you overcook a roux

All products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.

If you’ve ever combined melted butter and flour over heat, congratulations: You’ve made a roux. While the name may make it sound intimidating, making a roux (pronounced “roo”) is relatively simple—all you need is fat, flour, heat, and time. But let’s start with the basics:

You’re Cooking It Too Much or Too Little It’ll smell a little nutty, and have the consistency of wet sand. This roux is useful for bechamel or cheese sauces because it also thickens the most of any type—the more you cook a roux and the darker it gets, the less thickening power it gets.

What is a roux?

A staple of Cajun, Creole, and French cuisines, roux is a seasoning and thickening agent made by combining fat and flour (usually in equal parts) over heat and whisking to make a thick paste. Roux forms the base for three of the five French mother sauces (velouté, espagnole, and béchamel) and many signature dishes of the American South, like gumbo, mac and cheese, and sausage gravy. It’s also a critical component of Thanksgiving turkey gravy.

Unlike a cornstarch slurry, roux must be cooked before adding hot liquid (otherwise the dish may retain the taste of raw flour). The longer a roux cooks, the less potent its thickening power, but what develops is a flavorful base that adds nutty, rich dimension to countless stews and sauces. This is why you’ll see roux cooked to varying levels of doneness, including white, blond, medium brown, and dark brown.

White roux cooks for the shortest amount of time (2–5 minutes) and functions primarily as a thickener in dishes like macaroni and cheese and clam chowder. On the other end of the spectrum, dark brown roux cooks for 30–45 minutes and acts as an integral seasoning in dishes like gumbo and étoufée. Most roux recipes call for all-purpose flour, but you could use any type of wheat flour for a basic roux. Want to make it gluten-free? Our gluten-free gravy uses sweet rice flour in place of wheat flour.

The fat is similarly flexible: Use butter, clarified butter, ghee, oil, or animal fat (like chicken schmaltz, duck fat, or pork lard). How do you decide which type of fat to use? It depends what dish you’re making and how long you’ll cook the roux. Butter adds great flavor, but since it has a lower smoke point than other fat sources (like vegetable or canola oil), it’s more likely to burn when used in a darker roux. “In a dark roux,” says New Orleans–based chef Justin Devillier, “I’ll mix butter with a high-heat oil” to keep the fat from scorching. “It’s really about preference; I know cooks who use all butter to make dark roux and the result [can be very] good.”

Many chefs use rendered fat from the protein used in the dish as the base for a roux. For example, the roux in this Chicken and Sausage Gumbo recipe relies on fat rendered from both the chicken and sausage.Shades of roux:

What color roux should you use for your dish? Use a light roux when you want to thicken sauces (like béchamel) without adding much flavor; opt for a dark roux when you want the finished dish to have nutty, caramelized undertones. In Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen, a resource on Cajun and Creole cuisine, Prudhomme writes that Cajun cooks traditionally use a light roux with dark meats (like beef, venison, or duck) and a dark roux with more delicate meats (pork, rabbit, veal, chicken, or seafood).

White roux: White roux is typically made with butter and cooked 2–5 minutes—just long enough to get rid of the raw flour taste. It should have an off-white to light tan color and the texture of wet sand. White roux is used to thicken sauces like béchamel without adding much flavor. Use it in lasagna, macaroni and cheese, or sausage gravy.

Blond roux: Blond roux (or peanut butter roux) cooks until it starts to smell toasty and turns the color of…well, peanut butter (about 5–10 minutes). Devillier uses blond roux in bisque and other creamy soups.

Medium brown roux: It takes 15–30 minutes to develop the nutty taste and aroma of a medium brown roux. Once it reaches a coppery brown hue, sometimes compared to melted milk chocolate, it’s ready. Devillier uses it in étouffée, while New Orleans chef Susan Spicer likes this stage of roux for seafood gumbo.

Dark brown roux: Dark brown roux looks like dark melted chocolate and has a rich, nutty flavor. Devillier uses dark roux more than any other shade, especially in gumbos and fricassees. Spicer often uses dark roux when making gumbo with duck, sausage, or rabbit.

How to Thicken Stew, Soup, and Sauces with Roux | Chef Jean-Pierre

FAQ

What happens to roux the longer you cook it?

How do you know when a roux is done?

How do you know if you burnt roux?

Does roux get thicker as it cooks?

Can You overcook a roux?

Yes, you can, but overcooking is not the best. Overcooking roux frequently results in burning, which many cooks are unfamiliar with. And burned roux can rarely be recovered; rather, you would have spent so much time and effort creating an acrid dish. Therefore, try your best to cook at the required pace and heat. Can you make a roux with olive oil?

How do you cook a roux?

A roux prevents this from ever happening. The starch in a roux is typically flour, while the fat can be anything from oil to lard to melted butter, depending on the flavor you want. The two are whisked together to form a paste, then cooked to varying degrees of doneness. Exactly how much the roux is cooked depends on the flavor and color you want.

Can Roux be too thick?

Too much flour and your sauce will be too thick. Too much fat and it won’t be thick enough. The ratio will depend on what you want to use your roux for, but the classic roux for thickening sauces is a one-to-one ratio of flour and butter. A roux is one of those stovetop dishes that benefits from patience.

Can you cook Roux without burning it?

Try it in Broccoli Cheese Soup. Brown Roux: In order to avoid burning your roux, turn down the heat to medium-low and keep stirring. You’ll need to keep cooking for an additional 5-15 minutes. The roux will take on a nutty aroma when it’s done and turn a milk chocolate brown.