Bechamel type sauce. Bechamel sauce - a classic homemade bechamel sauce recipe

Most classic sauces were invented during Roman times. But they became world famous thanks to the French court chefs. To date, France has given the world about 3 thousand types of various sauces. But they are all based on five basic recipes.

Bechamel. Prepared on the basis of butter, white flour and milk. The sauce is also loved by the Italians, who season it with lasagna and pasta.
Velut. Prepared on the basis of a light meat or fish broth with the addition of flour and butter. The delicate taste of the sauce is in perfect harmony with both meat dishes and seafood.
Espanyol. It differs from previous sauces in that the butter-flour mixture is fried to a dark brown color. Strong veal broth and tomatoes add a rich taste to the sauce. Espanyol is usually cooked in large quantities, then frozen and added to dishes as needed.
Tomato. The base is fresh tomatoes and olive oil. Onion, garlic and aromatic herbs are added to taste. It is the most popular sauce used in almost every cuisine in the world.
Dutch. Prepared on the basis of egg yolks and butter. Smooth, creamy mayonnaise-like sauce pairs best with seafood and vegetable dishes.

Classic bechamel sauce recipe

Peculiarities . All experiments at the stove begin with basic classic recipes. If you decide to take another step up in the culinary arts, a step-by-step recipe for bechamel sauce for lasagna, moussaka, pasta and other popular dishes will provide a solid basis for further development. For more than three hundred years, the technology of preparation and the set of components have not changed.

French Bechamel Sauce Ingredients:

50 g flour;
the same amount of butter;
0.5 l of milk (2.5%);
A pinch of salt and ground white pepper.

Cooking

Melt butter over low heat. It should just melt, not fry, otherwise the final product will have a yellow color and a burnt aftertaste.
Add flour. Rub the flour and butter mixture into the skillet with a wooden spatula. When the mixture has dispersed until smooth, arm yourself with a whisk and beat for about a minute so that the mass foams.
Add cold milk. Without stopping to work with a whisk, pour in a thin stream over a tablespoon. When a third of the milk is already in the pan, stir until all the lumps have dispersed. Now you can enter the remaining milk.
Boil. Increase the heat to medium and bring the sauce to a boil. After that, it should boil for another five minutes with continuous stirring.
Season. Turn off the burner and add salt and pepper to the sauce, according to your taste preferences.

Store the finished bechamel sauce in the refrigerator. To prevent it from crusting, tighten the container with a film smeared with butter. Expiration date - three days.

5 modern variations

Knowing how to make classic béchamel sauce opens up unlimited room for experimentation. Based on the basic recipe, you can get new tastes and textures that complement and set off your favorite dishes.

Spicy

Peculiarities . Bechamel with spices is so popular that many consider this option a classic. However, the technology for making spicy sauce is somewhat more complicated. In addition, the consumption of milk will be a little more, as it boils away during cooking.

You will need:

50 g flour;
the same amount of butter;
0.6 l of milk;
a little bit of salt;
bay leaf, cloves, nutmeg, a mixture of peppers, aromatic herbs and other spices to your taste.

Cooking

Fry the flour and butter, as in the classic recipe. Leave the mass to cool.
Wrap the spices in cotton cloth and tie tightly with a thread. Dip the package in cold milk. If using only ground spices, they can be added directly to the liquid.
Boil the milk and boil it for another quarter of an hour.
Cover the container with a lid and let it brew for a couple of hours.
Strain the milk and boil it again.
Add the butter-flour mixture prepared earlier to the hot liquid and beat the mass with a whisk to disperse the lumps.
Continuing to beat, put the sauce on the fire. When the first bubbles appear on the surface, turn off the burner without letting the sauce boil.

To color the sauce a soft pink color and give it a pleasant sweet and sour taste, add a tablespoon of fresh tomato puree at the final stage. Such a tomato bechamel perfectly complements potato dishes, pasta, sandwiches or pizza.

Onion

Peculiarities . New spicy shades will add onions to the classic white sauce. This option will appeal to fans of hearty homemade food. Onion bechamel perfectly complements meat and potato dishes.

You will need:

50 g flour;
70 g butter;
0.3 l of milk;
0.3 l of steep meat broth;
half a large onion or one small;
a pinch of salt;
a couple of bay leaves.

Cooking

Mix the broth with milk and put on fire.
Send finely chopped onion and bay leaf here.
When the liquid boils, let it boil for another three minutes and let it brew for a quarter of an hour.
Meanwhile, melt the butter in a saucepan and lightly fry the flour in it.
Strain the previously prepared broth and slowly fold it into the butter-flour mixture.
After boiling the sauce, salt it and cook for another 20 minutes.

vegan

Peculiarities . If you do not eat animal products, this does not mean at all that you will not be able to feel the delicate taste and aroma of Bechamel. Especially for such cases, a recipe has been developed without butter and milk.

You will need:

200 g cashews;
0.4 l of water;
50 g flour;
two tablespoons of olive oil;
a pinch of salt;
spices to taste.

Cooking

Soak nuts in boiling water for five minutes.
Drain the boiling water, and fill the cashews with cold water in an amount of 0.4 liters.
Using a blender, bring the mixture until smooth. If it gets too thick, you can add a little more water.
Combine olive oil with flour and lightly fry in a saucepan.
Whisking the mixture with a whisk, slowly introduce "nut milk".
Stirring constantly, cook the sauce until it begins to thicken.
It remains only to add salt and spices and let the mixture cool.

It is not so easy to smash the nuts until smooth. Therefore, if there are solid fragments in the sauce, it is recommended to strain it through a sieve.

in the microwave

Peculiarities . Sometimes a banal lack of time is an obstacle to discovering new culinary facets. Fortunately, there is a simple recipe for microwave bechamel sauce, adapted to modern realities and technical possibilities.

You will need:

50 g flour;
the same amount of butter;
0.6 l of milk;
a pinch of salt;
nutmeg to taste.

Cooking

Melt the butter and rub it into the flour.
Heat the mixture in the microwave for one and a half minutes.
Slowly pour cold milk into the mixture, whisking vigorously with a whisk.
Again, send the container to the microwave, but for five minutes. During this time, you will have to pause the device a couple of times to stir the mass.
Salt the sauce and add spices if necessary.
If lumps form, strain the mass through a sieve.

If the bechamel isn't thickening, make some more flour and butter mixture and add it to the sauce. After that, the mass will need to be heated for another minute.

Cheese in a slow cooker

Peculiarities . Another achievement of technical progress is the multicooker, which made life easier for housewives. With this device, you can prepare a delicate sauce, which, in combination with viscous cheese, perfectly complements homemade hot dogs, hamburgers or pasta dishes.

Compound. You will need:

60 g flour;
70 g butter;
0.5 l of milk;
200 g of grated Dutch cheese;
a pinch of salt;
nutmeg and ground black pepper to taste.

Cooking

Turn on the multicooker in the "Soup" or "Stew" mode.
Put butter in a bowl, melt it.
Add flour, stirring with a silicone spatula.
When the mixture becomes homogeneous, slowly pour in the milk, stirring constantly.
Without closing the lid, bring the liquid in the slow cooker to a boil and boil a little more to begin the thickening process.
Add salt, spices and cheese. When the latter is completely melted, the sauce can be considered ready.

Since milk needs to be poured in a thin stream, it is most convenient to use a packaged product. Just carefully cut off the corner of the package.

Which dishes go with cream bechamel? Cooking is not just the ability to combine and process foods. This is a real science that combines knowledge from physics, chemistry and other fields. To properly and tasty cook white bechamel sauce, you need to remember six subtleties.

Proper utensils. A frying pan or stewpan should have a thick bottom and a non-stick coating. To avoid damaging it, stir the sauce with a wooden spatula or silicone whisk.
Temperature contrast. Hot butter-flour mixture should be combined only with cold milk. And vice versa. If the components are at the same temperature, the sauce will take lumps or delaminate.
Only milk. No other dairy products can be the basis for bechamel. True, some chefs like to experiment with cream. But they must first be diluted with vegetable or meat broth so that they do not curdle.
Knowing of limits . Bechamel is primarily a milk sauce. The delicate taste and aroma of milk should dominate, so do not overdo it with spices. They should only slightly shade the sauce.
Consistency. The density should be such that the Bechamel sauce slowly drips off the spoon, enveloping it. For lasagna or moussaka, the sauce may be thinner.
Proper serving. Before serving Bechamel on the table, it must be warmed up. As it cools, it will begin to crust.

If everything was done according to the rules, and the sauce still came up in lumps, do not rush to get upset and throw away a valuable product. Just beat it with a blender until smooth.

Pasta, lasagna and moussaka are not all dishes in which you can use a delicate white sauce. Based on the reviews of the hostesses, we can distinguish seven options for the usual homemade food, which can be diversified with the help of bechamel.

Casseroles. Minced meat, vegetables, pasta - everything that you have in the refrigerator can be mixed, poured with sauce and sent to the oven. A delicate white substance will perfectly bind all the components of the casserole.
Filled pies. In this case, Bechamel works on the same principle as in a casserole - it binds the components and creates a delicate layer.
Pancakes . Fry boiled chicken with mushrooms and onions. A couple of minutes before readiness, add Bechamel and grated cheese. Wrap the filling in pancakes. They will soak in the sauce and become very tender.
Fish . Any white fish goes well with milk sauce. Before baking the fish in the oven, pour it with bechamel and sprinkle with fragrant herbs.
Vegetables . If you are on a diet, the basis of the diet is probably boiled, steamed or baked vegetables. French sauce with nutmeg will make them not so bland and tasteless.
Sandwiches. Do not lubricate them with harmful and high-calorie mayonnaise. Replace it with cheese and milk sauce.
Julien. With bechamel, they will turn out to be less high-calorie than with cream.

Among historians and culinary specialists, disputes about who owns the authorship of the famous sauce do not subside. Despite the fact that he bears the name of Louis Bechamel, the majordomo of Louis XIV, there is a version that he only appropriated the recipe of one of the court chefs, wanting to earn the gratitude of the king. Be that as it may, for more than 300 years, a delicate white sauce has conquered the hearts of gourmets. By learning how to make bechamel sauce at home, you will gain fame as a culinary master in the eyes of family members and guests.

Reviews: "Royal dish!"

I always have Bechamel ready. I cook it in large quantities, and then lay it out in containers and freeze it. (I visited a friend in Italy, everyone does it there). This sauce is obtained as the basis for almost everything: fry the mushrooms, stew in the sauce; and pasta "carbonara"; goulash gravy, etc. I can’t say the exact recipe, because I do it by eye, the only thing that, when I brew flour with butter, I dilute it with cream (even min%) about 300-500 gr, and then add milk to the desired density. In this case, the sauce acquires a sweet-creamy taste.

Svetlana Shcheblykina (Safonova), http://flap.rf/Food/Bechamel sauce

I always add Muscat. Making Lasagna easier. I take 400 ml of milk, pouring half a glass into a cup. I put the rest on the fire, in half a glass of cold milk I add 2 tbsp. l. flour without top. I stir until smooth. When the milk begins to boil, gently stirring, add the mixture from the glass. I add nutmeg, and two large handfuls of cheese, I prefer Cheddar. I let it thicken, the cheese dissolves, I try it for salt. Next, I spill the Lasagna. I often use this Bechamel base, I add different ingredients there, depending on the dish.

Miki, http://www.woman.ru/home/culinary/thread/4603894/

It is with buckwheat and boiled meat that bechamel is elegantly combined, a classic. In the form of butter, a layer of ready-made boiled buckwheat, a layer of meat (in a piece or chopped, or even scrolled), pour over the sauce, sprinkle with cheese and bake. Royal dish!

Jerusalem Girl, http://forum.say7.info/topic27625.html

Bechamel sauce is an integral part of the traditional cuisine of true gourmets. This gourmet accompaniment to dishes is so versatile that it can be eaten and served with just about anything. At the same time, the method of preparation and composition are striking in their simplicity.

Once you have mastered the classic recipe for this white sauce, you can easily base or use it on a variety of dishes and other sauces. The recipe requires a minimum of products and effort. This is what I like about Bechamel. It is very easy to prepare.

Recipe Information

Cuisine: French.

Cooking method: cooking .

Total cooking time: 10 min.

Servings: 2 .

Ingredients:

milk - 200 ml
butter - 1 tbsp.
flour - 1 tbsp.
salt - ¼ tsp
ground black pepper - a pinch.

How to cook:

Note to the owner

Remembering the Bechamel recipe is very simple. There are ideal proportions: 1 glass of milk, 1 tbsp. flour and the same amount of butter.
Based on this white sauce, other sauces are prepared by adding tomato, onion, eggs, cream, spices, shrimp and other ingredients to Bechamel.
Meat, poultry, fish, mushrooms, all kinds of vegetables are baked under Bechamel sauce, and of course, pasta, lasagna, julienne, moussaka are cooked with this sauce. It is universal. If you do not know how to decorate this or that dish, remember this sauce. And then any dish and product will sparkle with a new taste. The dish will acquire juiciness and attractiveness. Even ordinary ones will become tastier and more appetizing.
When preparing bechamel, remember that after cooling it will still thicken, so it is better to remove it from the stove earlier.
This sauce is recommended to cook at a time. To avoid storing it in the refrigerator. Otherwise, the surface will be covered with an unattractive crust, which is not easy to get rid of later.
The taste of Bechamel should be delicate, milky, and the color should be creamy white. Therefore, be careful when adding pepper and salt to it.
If you have a slow cooker, then you can safely cook in it by setting the quenching mode.

1. With herbs - cut parsley, green onions and dill (3 tablespoons) and add 5 minutes before the end of cooking.
2. With onions - fry onions (2 heads) in a separate frying pan, chop in mashed potatoes and add to bechamel 5 minutes before the end of cooking.
3. With ham - add grated ham (100 grams) in 5 minutes and only then salt and pepper to taste.
4. With cheese - add 200 grams of grated cheese as soon as milk is added to the bechamel.
5. With mushrooms - grind 1 cup of fried mushrooms into puree and add 5 minutes before the end of the bechamel preparation.

Bacon, bell pepper, garlic, herbs, cinnamon, cloves, bay leaf and nutmeg are added to taste when cooking Bechamel sauce.

When adding additional foods (such as onions) to Bechamel, it is important that when adding the product it is at the same temperature as the butter and flour.

If the béchamel is to be served on its own, it is important that the sauce is not filmed. To do this, after boiling the Bechamel sauce, you need to stir a piece of butter in it (a cube with a side of 3x3 centimeters).

Calorie content of Bechamel sauce - 280 kcal.

Bechamel sauce is one of the cheapest sauces. The cost of products for the preparation of 1 liter of Bechamel sauce - from 120 rubles. (on average in Moscow as of June 2019). It is almost impossible to buy in the Bechamel store, because. expiration date is only a few hours. Bechamel sauce is prepared for 1 meal.

Bechamel sauce is suitable for potatoes, mushrooms, meat and poultry. This is an almost universal sauce that can be prepared and will definitely find its use on the table.

Bechamel is one of the five so-called "mother" sauces, on the basis of which "daughter", secondary sauces are prepared, about which I will also say a little.

The basis for many French sauces, including bechamel, is flour lightly fried in butter. The tender paste resulting from roasting is called roux ( roux).

Depending on the degree of roasting, flour dressing is white, golden and brown. For our bechamel, we need to make a white roux.

What you need:

heavy-bottomed skillet or heavy skillet
whisk
500 ml cold milk
30 g butter
30 g flour
salt, freshly ground white pepper, nutmeg

Pay attention to the same amount of flour and butter - this is one of the main rules for bechamel sauce. And the milk must be cold. Pepper - white: in sauce bechamel It's not the spiciness that matters, but the flavor. Nutmeg delicately accentuates the milky taste. By the way, milk for the sauce can be pre-infused with onions, carrots, cloves, bay leaves.

What to do:
Melt the butter over medium heat and, as soon as it foams slightly, pour the flour over the entire surface. Rub quickly with a spoon or whisk and leave on fire for 1-2 minutes.

Then, with continuous stirring with a whisk, carefully pour in cold milk. Add heat and, continuing to stir, bring to a boil. Don't be afraid of lumps! A few more seconds and they will disperse into a homogeneous, dense sauce. And if this does not suddenly happen, rubbing the sauce through a sieve is considered quite natural. Some recipes even recommend straining the sauce through a sieve to remove clots. But this is a little later, when the bechamel is completely ready.

In the meantime, you need to reduce the heat to the very minimum and warm up for 40-45 minutes. Yes, the process is not fast and, at first glance, it seems superfluous, but it is far from being the case. During long heating, excess moisture evaporates and the taste of flour completely disappears. If you do not follow this rule, then after the sauce is removed from the heat, it will change its consistency quite a lot - it will thicken.

At the end sauce salt, add white pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.

Variations on a Bechamel Theme

An independent bechamel sauce, as a seasoning for hot dishes of meat, fish, vegetables and pasta, is ready. But its use does not end there. Bechamel sauce is used as an ingredient in dishes such as lasagna, moussaka and many gratins.

By the way, the famous and beloved Soviet ceremonial dish meat in french there is nothing but gratin from potatoes with meat. Only, it should, of course, not be drowned in a mayonnaise stratified substance, but baked with bechamel sauce. So feel free to cook a forgotten dish and proudly serve it to the table like a gratin. Only such advice - the sauce for baking should be made a little thicker. To do this, do not reduce the amount of milk, but hold it on fire a little longer - up to 1 hour.

As I said at the very beginning, other equally famous sauces are prepared on the basis of bechamel. These are Mornay, Nantua, Aurora, Subise.

Sauce morne prepared with the addition of raw egg yolks, cream and Gruyère cheese. This sauce is poured over dishes before grilling - spring rolls, poached eggs, fish and seafood.

Sauce Nantua- This is a bechamel sauce with the addition of gourmet cancer oil. The famous pike quenelles are cooked in nantois sauce.

Sauce subise- bechamel with the addition of stewed onions and cream. Ideal with baked chicken, guinea fowl and veal.

Sauce Aurora- this is " mother sauce» plus cream, butter and tomato paste. Pairs well with pasta, cauliflower, turkey escalopes.

Olga Syutkina:
“The Kitchen of My Love” was the title of my first book. Since then, in addition to traditional gastronomy, my husband and I have taken up the history of Russian cuisine, have written a new book - "The uninvented history of Russian cuisine." It is about the past of our gastronomy, about how it arose and developed. About the people who created it. Now there is a continuation of this work - already about the Soviet period. Together with readers, we are trying to figure out whether the Soviet cuisine was a logical stage in the development of great Russian cuisine or became an accidental zigzag of history. Here I will try to tell you about how, sometimes in an amazing way, history comes to our world today, to our kitchens and tables.

Olga Syutkina's recipes:

meat broth

Bouillon is a French word. But by an irony of fate or semantics, even in Russian, it capaciously reflects the process: I immediately imagine a gurgling fragrant broth ...

Culinary art largely depends on the skill of the cook. No wonder they say: "The same torture, but not the same pens." With regard to meat dishes, it can be said with confidence that from the same meat someone manages to cook a piece called “beefsteak” as hard as a sole, while someone turns the meat into tender and uniquely tasty. This can be achieved with the help of, for example, bechamel sauce, the recipe of which is not too complicated even for a novice hostess.

Anyone who wonders how to make bechamel sauce should know that this seasoning contains only three components: milk (cream), flour and butter. According to legend, this sauce was created by none other than the Marquis de Bechamel, majordomo of King Louis XIV. It is doubtful that he himself stood at the stove with a ladle. Surely this seasoning was invented by his cook, but Monsieur Bechamel is remembered with a kind word, seasoning another meat dish with the resulting marinade.

Making Bechamel Sauce: A Basic Recipe

You can start mastering French cuisine with different seasonings, but classic bechamel sauce, the recipe of which can have several variations, is prepared first. It can be runny like gravy, medium thick for seasoning soup, but thicker for sautéing fish, meat, vegetables, lasagna, julienne or spaghetti. Density most often depends on the amount of flour. Gravy can acquire new shades of taste if grated horseradish root, cheese, as well as ketchup, laurel, nutmeg, black pepper, even fried onions are added to it.

How to prepare a basic bechamel?

Making bechamel sauce is very easy!

Seasoning Ingredients:

300 ml of milk;
100 g fresh butter;
4 tbsp. tablespoons of flour (only wheat);
nutmeg - on the tip of a knife;
salt, pepper - to taste.

Cooking time - 10-15 minutes.

The step-by-step recipe for this delicious seasoning is well known. Bechamel sauce is easy to make at home. You only need to do a few simple steps:

Butter should be dissolved in a small saucepan over low heat.
Add the flour to the melted butter, stirring vigorously with a wooden spatula so that there are no lumps.
Pour milk into the resulting thick mixture, stirring thoroughly - you know how to do it right in order to achieve the desired density.
Milk bechamel sauce thickens a lot when it cools, so it is better to leave it hot in a more liquid consistency.
While the bechamel sauce is hot, the recipe suggests adding salt, pepper, nutmeg to it, then mix thoroughly and leave to cool on the stove. The finished product is best used immediately: after heating the bechamel sauce in the microwave, its taste deteriorates.

To give a special taste to bechamel sauce with milk, some housewives use a slightly different cooking technology. They do not add flour to melted butter, but, on the contrary, they first fry it in a frying pan until a pale golden color, and only then add butter to it, and after that - liquid - broth with milk or cream.

How to diversify the taste of seasoning?

Not every housewife has enough time to try cooking new dishes every day, and there is definitely not enough time for new seasonings. Therefore, the usual bechamel sauce, cooked in milk, can be diversified with all sorts of additives. Someone prefers to add ready-made seasonings, someone combines the base base with ketchup, mayonnaise, there are those who expand the flavor palette by adding mushrooms, vegetables, nuts. But perhaps it would be easier to cook bechamel with cheese.

Due to its light color, this now common seasoning in many cookbooks is called differently - “classic white sauce”. For the cheese version of this dish, two more ingredients are needed - cheese and two medium-sized chicken eggs. After preparing the main white sauce, without letting it cool down, you still need to add 100 grams of any hard cheese, and when it melts, carefully add raw eggs to the composition and bring to a boil again. So you can cook a very tasty béchamel sauce at home.

Sometimes you have to change something due to the lack of some components of the recipe. How to make white bechamel sauce even without milk? You should not replace it with kefir or ryazhenka, but sour cream sauce can turn out to be very even nothing. The cooking scheme does not change, just diluted sour cream will replace milk. Garlic lovers can’t ignore it here either, but for a spicy twist, add fried onions to this wonderful white base sauce recipe. It will not leave such a long aftertaste, which sometimes causes heartburn.

Where is white sauce used?

Each housewife has her own secret of how to prepare white sauce, but the range of its use in cooking is quite wide. Lasagna is still difficult to prepare for beginner cooks (although it will not be difficult to master a simple recipe for this Italian dish if you wish), but spaghetti or our native pasta, seasoned with a delicious and satisfying gravy, can put anyone in a happy mood.

You can speed up the preparation of the white sauce by melting the butter in the microwave. If you cook bechamel sauce in the microwave, then its taste will not yield to the traditional seasoning, and it will save a lot of time. Fish, meat, poultry will not only acquire a special taste of white sauce, but will also become more satisfying, which is especially important in winter. A husband who has returned from a frost or children who have played enough on the street should get the maximum calories, for this they do not use bread (thanks to which all dishes became more satisfying), but dishes with bechamel sauce.

If you start to master Italian or French cuisine, then you just need to know step by step how to prepare the main white sauce and its derivatives. For simplicity, you can cook bechamel in the microwave. If you pour boiled spaghetti (and even better vegetables) with the resulting seasoning, then put the dish in a baking dish and sprinkle with grated cheese and herbs on top, then you will get a wonderful casserole for dinner. The recipe for preparing such a dish for a working woman is a real lifesaver.

If you already know more than one answer to the question of how to cook bechamel sauce, you just have to master bechamel sauce in a slow cooker. The cooking time will be somewhat longer, but the richness of taste will be unique, and the white sauce, the recipe of which does not differ at all from the main one, will delight you with new shades.

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