With just six ingredients—including salt and pepper—classic béchamel sauce is simpler than it might sound. The creamy sauce is essentially a roux thinned with milk. That’s it! A pinch of nutmeg is traditional to enhance its creamy flavors, but it is by no means essential.
One of the Mother Sauces of French cuisine, codified in Auguste Escoffier’s 1903 Le Guide Culinaire, a basic béchamel recipe is forgiving and versatile. It’s the base for countless dishes, including moussaka, lasagna Bolognese, mac and cheese, and sausage gravy. Whisk in a little grated Gruyère and Parmesan (about ½ cup of the first, ¼ cup of the latter) and you’ll have mornay sauce—or swap in whatever melting cheese you like—and bake it into a hearty rigatoni casserole or collard greens gratin. You could also simply stir chopped parsley, tarragon, or chervil (or a combination) into a finished béchamel and use it to sauce roasted chicken, poached or baked salmon, or grilled veggies.
This recipe was adapted for style from ‘The Fannie Farmer Cookbook’ by Marion Cunningham. Buy the full book on Amazon or Bookshop.
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What you’ll need
Small Saucepan
$220 At Amazon
Kosher Salt
$14 $10 At Amazon
Pepper
$8 At Burlap and Barrel
Silicone Spatula
$18 At Amazon
Calabash Nutmeg
$15 At Amazon
Microplane
$16 At Amazon
Recipe information
Total Time
15 minutes
Yield
2½ cups
Ingredients
Preparation
Melt 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in ¼ cup (32 g) all-purpose flour and cook, stirring constantly, until the paste cooks and bubbles but does not brown, about 2 minutes (don’t rush this step; you need to cook the raw flour taste out of the roux). Slowly add 2½ cups whole milk while whisking to incorporate. Bring mixture to a simmer, stirring constantly, then reduce burner to low heat and cook until sauce coats the back of a spoon, 2–3 minutes more. Remove from heat and stir in ½ tsp. Diamond Crystal or ¼ tsp. Morton kosher salt, a pinch of freshly ground black pepper or white pepper, a pinch of freshly ground nutmeg. Taste and add additional kosher salt as needed.
VARIATION:
Cheese Sauce: Stir in ½ cup grated cheddar cheese during the last 2 minutes of cooking, along with a pinch of cayenne pepper.
Do ahead: Béchamel can be prepared 3 days in advance. Chill in an airtight container with a piece of plastic wrap or wax paper pressed directly onto the surface of the sauce.
Editor’s note: This béchamel sauce recipe was first printed on Epicurious in August 2004; it has been updated to yield twice the volume of the original. Head this way to round out your meal with our favorite French desserts →
Recipe notes
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Yes, you're making really good pantry pasta—but you're also mastering béchamel.
