FermenteaWhere food goes to change
← Recipes

Bechamel sauce

Béchamel · Béchamel · white sauce · Mornay (cheese bechamel)

Loading ratings…

Bechamel is a white sauce of milk thickened with a butter and flour roux, one of the French mother sauces, and the base from which Mornay and other cheese and cream sauces are made.

Suggest a correction
Smooth ivory béchamel sauce with nutmeg in a shallow ceramic bowl, coating a spoon.

A mother sauce with a long French history

Bechamel is a white sauce made by heating milk, or cream, into a roux of butter and flour. It is one of the French mother sauces, the base for other sauces, and it is commonly known as white sauce.

The sauce's earliest recorded form is in Francois Pierre de La Varenne's Le cuisinier francois of 1651, which has a roux sauce close to modern bechamel. Vincent La Chapelle's The Modern Cook (1733) gives the first recipe under the name bechamel, for turbot.

Sources for this section

The name and its origins

The name is thought to come from Louis de Bechameil, a seventeenth-century financier who was chief steward to Louis XIV. The article gives this as uncertain, and no other origin is documented with confidence.

A widely repeated story says the sauce was created in Tuscany as salsa colla and carried to France by Catherine de Medici. Archival work found no Italian chefs among her household, and the article treats the claim as unsupported.

Sources for this section

Making the sauce

A light roux of butter and flour is cooked, then the milk or cream is added. In La Chapelle's method the flour is dusted in, the liquid added and the pan stirred now and then until the sauce thickens. The sauce is seasoned with ground nutmeg.

One photograph caption describes infusing the milk with bay leaf, peppercorns, shallot and flat-leaf parsley before it goes into the roux. The sources read give no ratio of butter, flour and milk and no cooking time, so a cook has to judge the thickness by eye.

Sources for this section

Mornay and the other derivatives

Mornay is a bechamel with grated cheese, usually Gruyere, Parmesan or both, with salt and pepper. The sauce is often enriched with egg yolk. For fish dishes it is usually thinned with fish broth. In American cookery a cheddar version is common for macaroni and cheese.

The name Mornay is thought to honour Philippe de Mornay, though this is uncertain. A cheese sauce from his era would likely have been based on velouté, since bechamel had not yet been developed. Mornay is absent from the 1820 edition of Le Cuisinier Imperial and is linked to the Paris restaurant Le Grand Vefour.

Sources for this section

Holding and cooling

Bechamel is a dairy sauce that is usually made to serve at once. The sources read give no advice on cooling, storage, reheating or skinning. A batch that will be kept needs its own tested cooling method, and this page does not supply one.

Other named derivatives include cardinal, Nantua, Breton, supreme and soubise sauces, and Greek versions are often enriched with egg.

Sources for this section

History

The name is thought to honour Louis de Bechameil, a financier and chief steward to Louis XIV, but the article gives this as uncertain.

A widely repeated claim that it began in Tuscany as salsa colla and reached France through Catherine de Medici is treated by the article as unsupported.

Ingredients

Scaling: source batch only

ButterMelted in a pan.
Amount not stated
Quantity not given in the sources read.
Plain flourStirred into the butter to make a light roux.
Amount not stated
Quantity not given in the sources read.
MilkMay be infused with bay leaf, peppercorns, shallot and parsley before use.
Amount not stated
Cream may be used in place of milk.
Ground nutmeg
to taste
Gruyere and Parmesan (optional)Grated and stirred into the hot sauce for a Mornay.
Amount not stated
Mornay only; either cheese or both.

Method

Risks and precautions · Standard risk
Dairy sauce held at warm temperatures

Milk and cream sauces support bacterial growth when they are cooled slowly or held warm, so the holding and cooling method matters.

Hazard source

Use a tested cooling and reheating method for any batch that will be stored

Control source

The sources give no cooling, storage or reheating advice for bechamel. Do not treat this page as a storage method.

  1. Melt butter in a pan and stir in the flour to make a light roux, cooking it without colouring it.
  2. Add the milk, or cream, which may first be infused with bay leaf, peppercorns, shallot and flat-leaf parsley.
  3. Stir now and then until the sauce thickens, then season with ground nutmeg, salt and pepper.
  4. For a Mornay, stir grated cheese, usually Gruyere, Parmesan or both, into the hot bechamel until it melts. The sauce is often enriched with egg yolk, and for fish dishes it is thinned with fish broth.

Places

France

Historical attestation · Country evidence

The sauce is attested in French cookery books from 1651; its origin in Italy is a claim the article treats as unsupported.

See Franceon the mapLocation source 1 →

Related

More from France

  • Bagna cauda

    A warm dip of garlic, anchovy and olive oil, often enriched with butter, that Piedmont serves over a flame with raw and cooked vegetables and bread.

  • Beurre blanc

    Beurre blanc is a warm emulsion of cold butter whisked into a reduction of white wine, vinegar or lemon juice and shallot, a sauce from the Loire Valley and its red-wine version, beurre rouge.

  • Crème anglaise

    A thin, pourable custard sauce of egg yolks, sugar and hot milk or cream, cooked gently until it coats a spoon and no further.

  • Demi-glace

    Demi-glace is a rich brown sauce of French cookery, classically made by reducing equal parts espagnole sauce and brown stock by half. It is used on its own or as a base for other sauces.

  • Espagnole sauce

    Espagnole is a brown mother sauce built on a dark roux, brown veal or beef stock and tomato, the base from which demi-glace and many brown sauces are made.

  • French mustard-forward mayonnaise

    An untested home mayonnaise development formula with more Dijon mustard and no added sugar. A current French-market Dijon mayonnaise informs its flavor direction; this is not that product’s formula.

  • Gooseberry sauce

    Gooseberry sauce is a soft, tart sauce of cooked green gooseberries, sharpened with wine or vinegar and lightly sweetened, traditionally served with mackerel.

  • Gribiche

    A cold French sauce of emulsified hard-boiled egg yolk and mustard, finished with chopped pickled cucumber, capers and herbs and julienned egg white.

Related in the family

  • Allioli (Catalan garlic emulsion)

    Traditional Catalan allioli is a dense emulsion of garlic, olive oil and salt made slowly in a mortar. This measured Barcelona-style version keeps egg-based garlic mayonnaise distinct.

  • Avocado-oil mayonnaise

    Avocado-oil mayonnaise is an ordinary egg-and-oil emulsion in which avocado oil supplies the oil phase. The oil changes flavour and colour, and it does not preserve the sauce.

  • Blue cheese dressing

    Blue cheese dressing is a creamy dressing built on crumbled blue cheese mashed into buttermilk, with sour cream, mayonnaise, vinegar and seasoning, and kept cold for up to two weeks.

  • Bread sauce

    Bread sauce is a British sauce of milk infused with onion, clove and bay, thickened with stale breadcrumbs and finished with butter, served with roast chicken or turkey.

  • British-style tangy salad cream

    Starch-thickened salad-cream prototype with pasteurised yolk added after cooling; not a Heinz copy. Approximate yield 300 g.

  • Burger sauce

    Mayonnaise mixed with ketchup, drained pickle relish and yellow mustard makes a tangy, pickle-flecked sauce for burgers; these proportions are an untested starting point.

Early modern

  • Agar / kanten

    A gelling polysaccharide extracted from red seaweeds, sold as kanten strips or powder; it sets firm at a low concentration and stays solid until about 85 °C.

  • Agrio de naranja

    A Dominican table and seasoning condiment of sour orange juice, mixed with lime and salt and bottled raw; garlic, oregano or a hot pepper may be added for meat or a spicier bottle.

  • Alpine blue sow-thistle

    Cicerbita alpina is an alpine perennial whose tender shoots and leaves have been eaten raw or cooked. Sámi milk preparations and modern Carnian dishes are distinct uses, with serious identification and preservation limits.

  • Arabushi (smoke-dried bonito)

    Japanese skipjack tuna cooked, then repeatedly smoked and dried over a wood fire by the hand-fired tebiyama method into a hard block for shaving into dashi: the first stage of katsuobushi.

  • Ättika

    A Swedish-style spirit vinegar made by fermenting neutral alcohol with live vinegar bacteria, with a separate guide to commercial ättika strengths.

  • Bagel

    A yeast-raised wheat ring shaped from a firm dough, briefly boiled and baked. This source-batch formula gives a gently malted crust and a chewy crumb.

  • Bêche-de-mer (trepang)

    Sea cucumber cleaned, boiled and dried, sometimes with smoke, into a long-keeping trade product; Makassan processing in Arnhem Land is documented from at least the eighteenth century.

  • Bettara-zuke

    A sweet, crisp Japanese daikon pickle from Tokyo's Nihonbashi district, made by salting fresh radish and dressing it in rice koji, sugar or koji amazake without the heavy drying used for takuan.

Community

No community contributions have been published for this entry yet.

Share what you made

Sign in to contribute. Published comments and photos are free to read.

Share a creation photoSuggest a correction

Sources