How to make bechamel sauce at home

Bechamel sauce - cooking basics

Classic bechamel sauce recipe includes milk, flour, salt, black pepper, and butter. The base is cream or milk, which should preferably be flavored with spices or herbs. Due to this, the meat or fish served with the sauce acquires a more expressive taste.

To do this, add herbs or spices to cold milk and slowly bring it to a boil. Then remove from the stove, cover the pan with a lid, and leave for two hours. The prepared milk is filtered and a sauce is prepared based on it.

Rublon is the base for the sauce. This is flour fried until golden brown, ground with butter. Products are taken in a one to one ratio. The volume of milk is calculated depending on how thick you want the sauce to be. To obtain the ideal consistency, take five parts milk to one part flour and butter.

ATTENTION! Do not use fermented milk products for cooking. Under the influence of high temperature, they will curl and the sauce will turn out to be lumpy.

Fry the flour for about a minute in butter until it acquires a delicate golden hue. Add flavored milk to the resulting mixture, stirring quickly with a spoon so that there are no lumps.

Another cooking method: fry the flour in a dry frying pan until lightly browned, then add butter. When it melts, pour in the liquid and simmer until thickened.

Mushroom béchamel sauce

This sauce is perfect as an addition to pasta or meat. Its mushroom aroma will not leave anyone indifferent.

So, what products should you take?

2.5 cups milk;
fresh mushrooms (white or champignons) – up to 200 g;
melted butter 2-3 tablespoons;
flour - as much as butter;
2 yolks;
a glass of broth (water);
a little salt, ¼ teaspoon.

Cooking method:

Peel the mushrooms, wash and cut into small pieces.
Melt the butter in a saucepan and add flour to it. Fry until golden brown. This will take 1-2 minutes. Stir constantly!
Keeping the mixture over medium heat, begin adding 1.5 cups of milk, stirring constantly until the lumps dissolve.
Stir the yolks in the remaining milk and pour into the main mixture.
Then add the broth and the remaining 0.5 cups of milk to the sauce.
Cook over low heat until boiling, stirring constantly.
When the sauce reaches the desired consistency, add the mushrooms and simmer for another 15 minutes.
At the end, add a spoonful of butter and the sauce is ready!

Serve warm.

How to make Bechamel sauce

Even a novice housewife can prepare the Bechamel sauce recipe at home. It is enough to have the necessary set of products on hand and strictly follow the recipe.

Homemade Bechamel sauce recipe

Ingredients:

¼ stick of butter;
3 g table salt;
50 g wheat flour;
2 stacks milk.

Cooking method:

Pour the milk into a saucepan and heat it, but do not bring it to a boil.
Place butter in a frying pan. Melt over moderate heat.
Add flour, after sifting it, and rub well with a wooden spatula.
Add milk in small parts, stirring quickly to avoid lumps forming.
Bring the sauce to a boil, stirring continuously. Cook for 2 minutes until the mixture begins to thicken. Salt. Remove the pan from the heat.

Important! To prevent a film from forming on the surface, place a piece of butter on top.

Modern classic recipe

How to make bechamel sauce at home? In fact, this is a skill that every home cook should have. It's easy to make and one of the most versatile sauces for cooking a variety of dishes. To make bechamel sauce at home you will need the following:

half a glass of butter, cut into cubes;
half a glass of flour;
2-3 glasses of whole milk;
a pinch of cayenne pepper;
half a teaspoon of mustard powder;
a pinch of ground/grated nutmeg;
pepper and salt to taste.

This is the classic composition for the main sauce. It can be included in many complex dishes and as a topping for them.

Bechamel sauce - classic recipe

Bechamel sauce - a classic step-by-step recipe with photos will perfectly reveal the taste of any dish, making it interesting and rich.

Ingredients:

40 g butter;
3 g nutmeg;
40 g wheat flour;
300 ml fat milk;
salt to taste.

Cooking method:

Pour the milk into a saucepan and heat well, without bringing to a boil. It should be hot.

Place the butter in a saucepan and melt it over low heat. Add the sifted flour in small parts and rub thoroughly with a wooden or silicone spatula.

Pour milk little by little into the butter-flour mixture. Do not stop rubbing with a spatula. Continue to simmer over low heat, stirring continuously, until the mixture begins to thicken. At the end, season with grated nutmeg, stir, and heat for another couple of minutes. Remove from the stove.

Muscat Bechamel sauce

Nutmeg adds spicy notes to the sauce, which will appeal to connoisseurs of original combinations and bright flavors.

So, what do you need to prepare a spicy sauce?

flour 65 g (1/4 cup);
butter 4 tbsp;
half a liter of milk;
a little salt;
a pinch of white pepper;
also a pinch of ground nutmeg.

Instructions:

Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Pour flour into a container with butter and stir with a wooden spoon until the flour begins to change color. This is no more than 2 minutes in time.
Add the milk a little at a time, stirring the lumps. Stir constantly until the mixture becomes homogeneous.
Stir the sauce all the time over low heat. Once it starts to thicken, add the nutmeg and remaining spices.

The flavorful sauce is ready!

Vegan Bechamel

How to make Bechamel sauce for those who cannot consume milk or butter. A great option during Lent.

Ingredients:

salt, nutmeg and pepper to taste;
cashew nuts – 200 g;
olive oil – 2 tbsp;
filtered water – 350 ml;
wheat flour – 60 g.

Cooking method:

Pour boiling water over the cashews and steam for about five minutes. Then drain the water. Place the nuts in a blender container and add 300 ml of cold water. We start the device and beat everything until smooth. Gradually add another 50 ml of water.
Combine flour in a saucepan with olive oil. Place on low heat and lightly fry. Stirring continuously, pour in the nut milk. Simmer on low heat until thickened. Salt, season with nutmeg and pepper. If desired, strain the resulting sauce through a sieve.

Bechamel sauce: classic

milk - 0.75 l.
butter - 50-60 gr.
premium wheat flour - 50 gr.
olive oil - 50-60 ml.

Arm yourself with a saucepan with a thick non-stick bottom in advance. Grind olive oil and butter in it to obtain a mass of homogeneous consistency.
Now sift the flour and add it into the bowl with the main ingredients in portions. Avoid the formation of lumps.
After mixing the flour, salt the dressing, pour in milk at room temperature in a thin stream.
Place the cookware with its contents on the fire, set the burner to minimum power and begin simmering. Stir constantly.
When the sauce comes to a boil, note the time. Again, stir it and cook for another 8 minutes.
If the dressing is too liquid, simmer for an additional 2 minutes. If the Bechamel sauce is too thick, add a little milk.

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Tomato sauce "Béchamel"

An original version prepared on the basis of the classic Bechamel sauce. Ideal for country baked potatoes in the oven, sandwiches or pasta.

Ingredients:

butter – 50 g;
tomato puree – 1 tbsp;
flour – 50 g;
fat milk – 0.5 l;
Salt and ground pepper to taste.

Cooking method:

In a thick-bottomed saucepan, grind flour and butter. Place on medium heat and fry, stirring continuously, until golden brown.
Pour milk in small portions in a thin stream, stirring thoroughly each time until smooth. As soon as the mixture begins to thicken, add salt, season with spices, pepper and add tomato puree. Stir and remove from heat.

Advice! The taste of Bechamel can be changed by adding spicy ketchup instead of tomato puree.

Bechamel sauce with mushrooms

Excellent sauce with a subtle mushroom aroma and pieces of champignons. Pairs well with different types of pasta, chicken and various meat dishes.

Ingredients:

Champignons - 150 gr.
Butter - 70 gr.
Wheat flour - 30 gr.
Cream (10-15%) - 350 ml.
Hard cheese - 40 gr.
Ground nutmeg - 1/3 tsp.
Salt - to taste
Pepper - to taste

Cooking process:

Wash and dry the mushrooms, then chop them in a special blender bowl as finely as possible.
Melt the butter in a frying pan, literally 5-10 grams, and fry the champignons for literally 5-7 minutes. Melt the remaining butter in a saucepan and sift in the flour.
Add the flour to the saucepan with the butter and mix thoroughly until smooth. Cook over low heat for 2-3 minutes, then slowly pour cold cream into the butter and flour mixture, stir until smooth. Add salt and nutmeg, simmering until mixture thickens.
Add mushrooms to the sauce, grate the hard cheese on a fine grater and add to the saucepan with the sauce. Heat the sauce until the cheese is completely melted.
Serve bechamel sauce with mushrooms hot, along with the main dish. Bon appetit!

What to use Bechamel sauce with?

Options for using Bechamel sauce:

Lasagna. A classic dish recipe cannot be imagined without sauce.
Pies, tarts and casseroles. Bechamel will not only make the filling juicy, but will transform its taste.
Paste. The creamy taste of the sauce and delicate texture will turn even banal pasta into a real masterpiece.
Julienne. Bechamel will make this dish just perfect, as it goes well with chicken and mushrooms.
Pancakes. Add sauce to the filling of chicken fillet, fried onions and mushrooms. Place on a pancake, form a “bag”, tie with a feather of green onions and get an exquisite, beautiful snack.
Sandwiches. An excellent alternative to harmful mayonnaise.
Fish. Baked with sauce it will turn out incredibly tender and juicy.
Eggs. Press into ramekins, add some sautéed spinach and pour in the sauce. Bake in the oven until done. Get an original, delicious breakfast.
Vegetables. They are aromatic, tasty and healthy if baked with sauce and cheese. This dish will decorate the holiday table.
Asparagus. Bechamel is simply made for her. The vegetable acquires a delicate, refined taste.

History of bechamel sauce

If you ever need an example of success, don't look for some obscure examples. The bechamel sauce will still come first. There are at least four theories regarding its origins, which include several chefs and two countries.

The most famous person in this story is La Varenne, the 17th-century chef who essentially founded classical French cuisine. Béchamel sauce was first mentioned in his famous work The French Cook, published in 1651. The book, written for other professional chefs, changed the cuisine of France and became a bestseller in the 1700s. La Varenne introduced new recipes and reformulated old ones.

Roux paste, made by cooking butter and flour together, became the standard method of thickening sauces in place of the breadcrumbs or ground almonds common in medieval recipes. Using this technique, French sauces became smooth and silky, without the grainy texture of previous products.

But is La Varenne really credited for the invention of béchamel? Half a century before him, Marie de' Medici came to France as the bride of Henry IV. As a girl from a wealthy and cultured Medici family in Florence, Maria brought with her a huge dowry, including cooks who made a very similar sauce that had been prepared in Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna for hundreds of years. Antonin Karim, who later called béchamel one of the cornerstone "mother" sauces, acknowledged in 1822 that "the cooks of the second half of the 1700s became acquainted with the taste of Italian cuisine, which Catherine de' Medici introduced to the French court."

The invention of this product is often attributed to the Duc de Mornay, a provincial governor and outspoken gourmet, who is also credited as the inventor of the mornay sauce, based on bechamel but containing Gruyère and Parmesan.

Another contender for the invention of this composition is the Marquise Louis de Béchamel, a wealthy financier with no known culinary knowledge whatsoever. However, she was a contemporary of La Varenne, a favorite of Louis XIV and a prominent member of the royal court. It is more likely that the sauce was named after her than that she invented it herself.

All things considered, it's safe to assume that the original Béchamel was created by an anonymous chef in northern Italy, modernized by La Varenne, and then made famous by Mornay.

Bechamel sauce for lasagna - basic recipe

Sauce is one of the most important components of a dish. Creamy Bechamel perfectly complements the taste of the filling, making it juicy and tender.

Ingredients:

100 g wheat flour;
a pinch of nutmeg;
1 liter of fat milk;
a pack of butter;
salt to taste.

Cooking method:

Pour the flour into a frying pan and fry over low heat, stirring continuously with a wooden spatula, until creamy.
Add butter and fry, stirring vigorously, for another five minutes.
Pour in the milk in a thin stream, whisking the mixture until not a single lump remains. Salt and season with nutmeg. Cook the sauce, whisking continuously until it thickens.

Attention! Use the sauce hot. Cooled Bechamel must be slightly warmed before use.

Bechamel sauce for pasta with minced meat

Ingredients:

Cheese - 200 gr.
Milk - 700 ml.
Oil - 200 gr.
Flour - 2 teaspoons
Onion - 1/2 head
Salt - to taste
Nutmeg - 1 teaspoon

Cooking method:

1. Melt the butter in a ladle or frying pan, then add a couple of teaspoons of flour and bring until smooth. Fry over low heat, stirring constantly.

2. Let the milk warm up until hot, but not boiling. The milk has become hot, add half an onion for about 5 minutes.

3. Gradually pour in warm milk, stirring so that foam does not form. Salt to taste, add nutmeg. Boil for 2-3 minutes, then add grated hard cheese.

4. Boil the pasta, combine it with the sauce, close the lid for a minute and simmer.

Then we serve it to the table. Bon appetit.

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Lasagne – recipe with minced meat and Bechamel sauce

Dish of Italian cuisine. Lasagna - layers of dough, layered with filling and sauce, and baked in the oven. There are many ways to prepare the dish, but they are all prepared using Bechamel sauce.

Ingredients:

10 lasagna sheets;
3 onions;
1 kg of mixed minced meat;
4 cloves of garlic;
3 carrots;
300 g Russian cheese;
6 tomatoes;
salt to taste;
vegetable oil.

Cooking method:

Finely chop the peeled onion. We peel the garlic cloves and squeeze them through a press. Grind the peeled carrots into large shavings. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes and peel them. Blend in a blend until smooth.
In a frying pan with heated oil, fry the onion and garlic until lightly browned. Add grated carrots and cook for a few more minutes. Add the minced meat, season with spices, add salt and simmer for another 20 minutes. Pour in the tomato, stir, and after 5 minutes remove from the stove.
Grind the cheese into large shavings. Place lasagna sheets in a baking dish. Place half of the meat filling on them and distribute it evenly. Cover with Bechamel sauce and sprinkle with cheese shavings. We repeat the layers. Cover everything with lasagna sheets, grease them with sauce, sprinkle with cheese and bake at 180 degrees for about forty minutes.

What is bechamel sauce?

Also known as white sauce, béchamel is an “ingredient”—a sauce prepared for use in another dish or as a base for a more complex gravy. What is included in bechamel sauce? It consists of milk (whole milk, which is important!), heated and condensed with the help of other ingredients. Béchamel is one of the five “mother” sauces of French cuisine. Its composition is similar to veloutê, which is also an ingredient sauce. The only difference is that bechamel is prepared using milk, while in veloutê the liquid is presented in the form of broth.

Before the process of cooling and pasteurizing milk became easy to do industrially, this product was only available to wealthy people. Butter and cheese could be stored without much spoilage in a cool room or in a summer kitchen, but milk spoiled quickly, and the growth of bacteria in it could cause illness. Therefore, it was a somewhat extravagant product, available to those who could afford to throw away everything that had spoiled. Because of this, béchamel was associated with wealth and abundance, while veloutê was accessible to the common man. When refrigeration and pasteurization made milk accessible, Béchamel rose to the top in popularity thanks to its association with luxury living.

Lasagna with chicken and mushrooms with Bechamel sauce and cheese

In Italian cuisine there are many different versions of lasagna: with minced meat, seafood, vegetables, mushrooms, vegetarian. The recipe with chicken and mushrooms is suitable for a festive feast.

Ingredients:

10 lasagna sheets (boiled);
salt and ground black pepper to taste;
½ kg of boiled chicken fillet;
400 g champignons;
1 onion;
250 g hard cheese.

Cooking method:

First of all, prepare the classic Bechamel sauce.
Now let's start filling. Wash the mushrooms and cut into thin slices. Chop the peeled onion into thin rings. Fry everything in vegetable oil until all the liquid has evaporated.
Cut the boiled chicken breast into thin slices. Grind the cheese on a coarse grater.
Boil water in a saucepan. Add a spoonful of vegetable oil to it. Dip lasagne sheets into it and boil. Cooking time is indicated on the package.
Grease the baking dish with oil. Place lasagna sheets in a single layer. Place half the mushrooms in an even layer on top and pour the sauce over them. Cover with lasagne sheets. Place slices of chicken meat on them. Cover with sauce and sprinkle with grated cheese. Repeat layers. Spread the sauce on top of the lasagna and sprinkle generously with grated cheese.
Place the mold in an oven preheated to 180 C for half an hour. Serve garnished with finely chopped herbs.

Advice! Please note that Bechamel sauce does not evaporate or be absorbed, so do not overdo it by adding too much of it when baking.

Julienne of poultry and mushrooms with baked milk sauce

What products will be needed for julienne:

boiled poultry meat - 300 gr. (for example, one boiled leg);
champignons - 400 gr;
onions - 2 pieces;
vegetable oil - two tablespoons;
butter - two tablespoons;
flour - two tablespoons;
baked milk - 500 ml;
grated cheese - 100 g;
bay leaf - 2 pieces;
salt, pepper, nutmeg and parsley to taste.

Preparation:

Peel the onion, cut into halves, each half into another half and chop finely. Clean the champignons from dirt and sand, cut off the edges of the legs, cut into slices. Cut the poultry meat into strips.
Heat the oil in a frying pan, fry the onion until golden brown, add the mushrooms, one bay leaf and cook until the liquid has evaporated. Then add the poultry meat, salt and pepper.
For the sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan and combine with flour. Prepare the gravy according to the classic recipe, only replace regular milk with baked milk.
Place the mixture of meat and mushrooms in greased cocotte makers, pour in the sauce, pour cheese on top and place in the oven until the cheese melts and a crust forms.

Bon appetit!

As a summary, I would like to say: there are no irreplaceable ingredients in cooking. Each one can be replaced with something and the result is a completely new dish. It won't necessarily be worse than the original. Perhaps even tastier and healthier. But it will be just different. Therefore, if the recipe indicates that you need bechamel sauce, cook with bechamel.

Bechamel sauce - step-by-step video recipe at home

Delicate, creamy Bechamel, prepared according to the video recipe, will perfectly complement meat and fish dishes, or become the basis for more complex sauces.

Ingredients:

butter – 50 g;
milk (broth) – 300 ml;
salt, nutmeg and ground pepper - to taste;
cream 20% - 150 ml;
flour – 50 g.

Having learned how to properly prepare classic Bechamel, you can experiment by adding cheese, ground red pepper, fried onions or tomato paste. The sauce can be prepared in advance, poured into molds and frozen. If necessary, warm up and use for preparing various dishes.

Bechamel for fish

sour cream - 110 gr.
butter - 45 gr.
salt, spices - to taste
lemon juice - to taste
egg yolk - 1 pc.
flour - 35 gr.
milk - 250 gr.

Use a small saucepan, pour milk into the container and heat it up. Using classic technology, fry wheat flour in melted butter.
To prevent lumps from forming, slowly combine the milk with the main mixture. After careful manipulation, bring the homogeneous mixture to a boil.
Reduce the heat on the stove to minimum, add lemon juice and sour cream to the main mixture. Stir the ingredients and continue heating over low heat. Remove the sauce from the stove, after a while add the egg yolk.

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