Bechamel sauce

How to prepare a bechamel sauce . Perhaps the most famous sauce recipe among white sauces, possibly the best known and prepared in the world.

An ancient haute cuisine sauce for aristocrats more than 300 years ago, to stay with us to this day and that is as common as preparing fried eggs.

What would our Spain be without croquettes ? Have you thought about it? One of the emails that I receive the most in my inbox is How do you prepare the bechamel so that there are no lumps?

A few years ago I published an entry that I have been modifying little by little until all your queries have been resolved, I think it is becoming very complete. Between all of us we will make sure there are no secrets in this sauce and that it is always perfect for us.

This cream will be your friend in some good croquettes , a lasagna or cannelloni , some crepes or stuffed pancakes ,  Mussel tigers , a special sandwich or a few breasts a la Villaroy …  endless recipes and tapas that without béchamel would not be what same.  

This sauce on occasions and cream on others will be the basis for many recipes that you will find on the blog. It is not the only way to prepare the famous béchamel sauce but it works very well for me. I hope that from now on you will not be afraid to get into flour with it. Go for it, without fear and cooks, that you link her well!

Before starting with the bechamel sauce

1. We sift the flour with a strainer. This step is very important so that later no lumps occur.
2. We put in a saucepan to heat over medium heat the liter of milk for 4-5 minutes without boiling. This step is to then speed up the sauce preparation process.
3. In another saucepan we introduce the butter and heat it over low heat until it melts, it has to turn a hazelnut color and it will remove a little foam that we can remove if we want.
4. Then we add the sifted flour. The process is called roux, it is the name of this step or mixture of flour and butter, which will help us bind the bechamel.
5. We let it mix until they form small golden-hued masses. This is very important because if the flour is raw, the bechamel will taste a lot like flour and it is not what we want.
6. In the previous step I used butter, but if we want we can use butter and olive oil to equal measures. The oil gives it a special touch. You can try to see if you like it.

Final preparation of the bechamel sauce

1. Mix the flour with the butter very well with a wooden spoon until it is like a ball.
2. We pour the hot milk into the saucepan with the flour and butter.
3. Add salt, pepper to taste and a little ground nutmeg.
4. Stir continuously with a rod (5-6 minutes). We are controlling the temperature and gradually adding the rest of the milk as we see that it thickens. In this step it is best to leave it to a minimum.
5. There will be a homogeneous mixture and most importantly without lumps. If you have not controlled this sauce and you have lumps, you can fix it with a touch of a mixer.
6. If it is too thick with a little more milk, touch a mixer and it will have the desired texture. This way you will have a perfect béchamel.
7. A little trick for those of you who really like dairy is to add a little fried tomato in step 6 with the rest of the ingredients. Even with some piquillo peppers and beat at the end.
8. It is an original way to make a recipe for pasta or even croquettes. Imagination to the power. Follow all the advice you will find in this video, it will be perfect the first time.

Curiosities and recommendations for a yummy béchamel sauce

• The proportions are very important depending on what you are going to prepare. A cream is not the same as a sauce. The measurements are less depending on the body you want to give the béchamel.
• In a few croquettes for each liter of milk, 3-4 tablespoons of flour and 3 of butter.
• In a few cannelloni, for every liter of milk, 2 of flour and 2 of butter.
• We can always correct with a little more flour. This is the ingredient that makes a thickener to prepare a thicker béchamel or, on the contrary, add milk to make it softer or more liquid.
• This famous sauce or cream has a most interesting history, the bechamel is attributed to Luis de Béchamel (1630-1703), Marquis de Nointel.
• Although the bad tongues say that the inventor was the cook of his son. Although the base of béchamel is milk, in the old recipe it was not used in its preparation.
• Follow the step by step that you will find in the album of the bechamel sauce recipe , it will come out the first time.

Your recommendations and versions

• Ana asks me : I have vitroceramine and the intensity of the heat goes from 0 to 9, a low temperature so that it turns hazelnut? “The best thing is at a low temperature (3-4) so ​​that the Roux is made little by little, the flour is toasted and then the flavor is as perfect as possible, nor is it essential that it stay with the toasted color, at the end this step is the one that will serve as a thickener to bind the sauce. Greater volume of flour, a denser béchamel, more milk, we will have a lighter béchamel. With extra virgin olive oil, the color will surely be more intense. ”
• Mariela from Argentina tells me that they make it very similar there but that she adds chives and parsley. “I consider essential the spicy touches of freshly ground white pepper and nutmeg and that the milk is real, no soy milk and the like. ”
• Rafa advises us to use extra virgin olive oil instead of butter. “If I want a stronger béchamel for a lasagna I incorporate olive and if I want it just as” also starring “I add sunflower. As you say, the point is that the raw flour does not remain, otherwise it would taste a lot like flour. To avoid lumps, my great friend is the rod. From the beginning of that great friendship between her and me, the lumps are past. ”
• Carmen asks us for a béchamel sauce with olive oil. For a liquid béchamel sauce (for lasagna for example): 1 l. warm whole milk, 80 g. flour, 80 ml. extra virgin olive oil, a pinch of salt, freshly ground black pepper and nutmeg to taste. If we see that it is too thick for how we want it, just add a little more milk. For a thick béchamel sauce (for croquettes for example): 1 l. warm whole milk, 140 g. flour, 140 ml. extra virgin olive oil, a pinch of salt, freshly ground black pepper and nutmeg to taste.