How to Make Bechamel Sauce? 6 variants!
Bechamel sauce is a sauce made from 3 ingredients. These are flour, butter, and milk. There are a number of other ingredients to make the bechamel sauce, but you need to know what to look for. That is discussed in this blog ‘How to make bechamel sauce?’.
Make a roux of butter and flour. Melt the butter over low heat and stir in the flour. Stir until the flour is absorbed by the butter. Stir for about 3 minutes to allow the flour to cook. Add the milk to your sauce and dissolve the roux while stirring.
This bechamel sauce is a basic sauce that can be made in many ways and used for many preparations.
The basis of bechamel sauce is a roux. You can read about everything you can make with roux in our blog ‘ How to make Roux?
Bechamel Sauce Recipe
The recipe for bechamel sauce consists of three ingredients in a fixed ratio. The ratio of the ingredients is 1:1:10. This means:
- 1 part flour
- 1 part butter
- 10 parts milk
- Pepper and salt
- Nutmeg
In other words: If you want 50 grams of flour, you also take 50 grams of butter. For the milk you use 500 ml. We use soy milk.
Bechamel Sauce Recipe
If you find the béchamel sauce too thin, just add a little less milk.
We use all plant-based products and you are free to do so.
Making Béchamel Sauce
Bechamel sauce is a sauce that you can use as a base for many sauces. Ingredients for a bechamel sauce for 4 people.
- 40 grams of vegetable butter
- 40 grams of flour
- 400 ml soy milk unsweetened
- salt
- Pepper
- 1 tsp Nutmeg
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice or white wine or white wine vinegar.
Use a pan with a thick bottom to prevent the flour from burning. You need a wooden spoon to stir a lot, so that the butter can absorb the flour. A lot of stirring in the pan can melt a plastic spoon. So rather use a wooden spoon.
Making Béchamel Sauce
The preparation method of béchamel sauce
- Place the butter in the pan and melt it over low heat or low heat. When you use high heat the butter will brown and you will not get a white béchamel sauce but a brown sauce after adding the milk.
- Add the flour all at once and stir until the butter and flour have become one mass. This is a roux that you have now made. It is quite a thick mass. The heat source remains low but should be able to bake a little.
- Stir for about 3 minutes to cook the roux, and keep stirring! If you don’t do this, you will continue to have a floury taste in your bechamel sauce. And you don’t want that! Leave your heat source as it is.
- After 3 minutes, add the soy milk little by little. This is a bit of a job and pays attention! It will steam and you burn your hands easily. Keep stirring with your wooden spoon or whisk when you add a little soy milk. The roux will dissolve a little but it will soon become thick again. Then immediately add soy again and stir quickly so that the roux becomes thinner again. Do this until all the soy milk has been added.
- Now you have the basic béchamel sauce and you can add whatever spices you want. Salt and pepper is always desirable, otherwise, the sauce will be very bland. Add nutmeg at your own discretion. So add a little and stir well. Taste to see if it tastes good or add some nutmeg. And don’t forget to add the lemon juice. Taste to see if it is to your liking and season if necessary.
This is a real classic béchamel sauce. From here you can make all kinds of other sauces or ragout.
If you want a thinner sauce, you add a little more soy milk and if you want a thick sauce, you add a little less soy milk. This is how you create your own bechamel sauce.
Bechamel sauce Lasagna
A béchamel sauce that you are going to make for a lasagna also starts here with making a roux, as described above under ”Making Bechamel Sauce’. The soy milk has only been replaced by the garden herb broth, which makes a lasagna sauce.
Bechamel sauce Lasagna
Necessities:
- 40 grams of vegetable butter
- 40 flower
- 400 ml garden herb stock from 1 stock cube (that is more than the instructions for use prescribe. We like this)
Now make the lasagna as you are used to and add this delicious béchamel sauce between the layers of the lasagna sheets.
Enjoy your meal!
Bechamel sauce with cheese
If you want to make a cheese sauce, you can start with a bechamel sauce as described above under ‘Making Bechamel sauce’, possibly without the lemon juice but a dash of white wine.
Necessities:
- Homemade bechamel sauce with white wine instead of lemon juice.
- 6 tablespoons (Vegetable) grated cheese.
- 2 heaped tablespoons of noble yeast flakes, possibly for the nutty taste!
Preparation method:
- Add the grated cheese to the warm homemade béchamel sauce and stir well. Let it melt and taste if you like the taste of cheese. If not, add some more.
- You can also add 2 tablespoons of noble yeast flakes for a delicious nutty taste. It will surprise you!
Are you new to vegetable (vegan) cheese? Then take a look at this blog Violife Cheese.
Bechamel Sauce Without Milk
You can also make a béchamel sauce without milk or milk products. The proportions remain the same and so does the way of making.
You can use these ingredients instead of milk:
- Soy milk, oat milk or rice milk
- Garden herbs – or vegetable stock
It may be that the binding is less than when you use leavening milk. Add a scoop of cornmeal to the rice milk before mixing with the roux.
Bechamel Sauce Without Milk
Ingredients for a béchamel sauce without milk:
- 40 grams of flour
- 40 grams of butter
- 400 ml milk replacer as described above
- Optionally, 1 heaped scoop of cornmeal when using rice milk.
- Lemon juice, white wine or vinegar
Make the bechamel sauce as described under the heading ‘Making Bechamel sauce’, at the top.
Enjoy your meal!
Bechamel Sauce without Flour
If for whatever reason you can’t or don’t want to use flour, cornstarch can also be a good option. The proportions remain the same:
Bechamel Sauce without Flour
- 40 grams of vegetable butter
- 40 grams cornflour (corn flour)
- 400 milk or stock
It is made in the same way as described under the heading ‘Making Bechamel Sauce’, near the top of the page.
Enjoy your meal!
Making Béchamel Sauce Without Butter
It is possible to make béchamel sauce without real butter, but this must be replaced by some kind of fat. This can be:
- Coconut oil (tasteless)
- 100% vegetable butter
- Olive oil
So you replace the butter for 1 of the 3 types of fat.
So here’s the recipe for a bechamel sauce without real butter:
- 40 grams butter substitute (choose from the 3 above)
- 40 grams of flour
- 400 ml milk
- Pepper and salt
- Lemon juice or white wine (vinegar)
Make the bechamel sauce without butter according to the recipe near the top, under the heading ‘Making Bechamel sauce’. You will notice that this goes well and tastes delicious! Enjoy your meal.
Bechamel sauce Herbs
When you have ready bechamel sauce, so with pepper, salt and lemon juice, also add herbs. It can be fresh herbs, but from a jar is also possible. Which herbs are good with bechamel sauce:
Bechamel sauce Herbs
- Finely chopped parsley or dry
- Chopped chives or dry
- Paprika powder, also looks nice a little red
- Oregano, finely chopped or dry
- Thyme fresh or dry
When your béchamel sauce is warm and you add the dry herbs, let it stand for a while to let it soften, otherwise, you will have hard chives in your mouth, for example.
Add spices little by little and taste if it’s good. Otherwise, add spices.
Herbs enrich the béchamel sauce in terms of taste, but also in terms of ‘the eye wants something too’.
Enjoy your meal!
