Sauce is a gravy for a main dish or side dish. In addition, it is also used directly in the preparation of some dishes. Herbs and spices, which are often included in sauces, stimulate the appetite and perfectly highlight the taste of the dish, making it unforgettable and unique. Sauces are prepared on a liquid basis with the addition of various ingredients and spices. There are sauces that contain flour, as well as those that do not. In addition, it is worth mentioning the sauces that housewives prepare with butter or vegetable oil, and some use vinegar for preparation.
They are served cold and have no such restrictions. The consistency is also different. Conventionally, they are divided into liquid, medium density and thick. For example, white has a medium-thick consistency. There is a technology for preparing classic base sauces that meets international gastronomic standards.
Sauces are divided into red and white. It is the white sauce that we will focus on in this article. You can prepare a white sauce based on meat, fish or there are also milk and creamy white sauces.
But these are just meager facts. It's time to find out practical recommendations preparing white sauce based on milk.
Recipe 1. White sauce milk based
Pour 425 ml of milk into a saucepan. Add a few sprigs of bay leaf and pepper, a little onion and a few sprigs of fresh parsley. Bring to a boil over low heat, remove from heat and let sit and cool completely. Strain back into the saucepan, add 40 grams of butter and 20 grams of flour. Bring to a boil and cook, whisking constantly until the sauce becomes smooth and thick enough.
Everything turned out to be much simpler than you imagined. Now you have a wonderful base sauce to which you can add herbs and lemon juice.
The famous French sauce Béchamel is a classic white sauce. It is prepared with water, milk, and broth. Sour cream is not suitable for its preparation, since it tends to curdle when heated. The base of the sauce is roux (flour fried in butter until golden brown). Flour and are taken in approximately equal quantities, and the amount of liquid depends on the desired thickness of the sauce. The main thing is to add broth or milk gradually.
Recipe 2. White sauce based on broth:
You will need broth, 15-20 grams of flour, 30 grams of butter, spices to taste. Fry the flour in butter until it browns. Add broth and peppercorns, and then cook for another 25-30 minutes over low heat. Strain. Season and add butter.
Then you can add grated onion, parsley, horseradish, and fried mushrooms to the main sauce. You can also beat egg yolks and cream. Then add the sauce and bring almost to a boil, stirring. You have the opportunity to experiment with ingredients, depending on what sauce you want to serve with.
White sauce is very versatile. It is quick to prepare and inexpensive, and its delicate texture ideally emphasizes the advantages of the main dish without interrupting its taste. That is why it is so valued in cooking. You can serve white fish and seafood, vegetables, rice and pasta. It has already become international. For example, in Italian cuisine it is used to make lasagna. Bechamel is one of the "top 5" best sauces in France, which is considered the birthplace of sauces. At one time, a simple sauce based on butter, flour and cream created a real sensation.
A few secrets to successfully making Bechamel sauce
1. Overcooked flour can cause the sauce to taste bad. Remember that it should have a light golden hue.
2. Flavoring cold milk with spices and zest will help enhance the flavor of the sauce.
3. For stirring, use wooden spoon or a spatula.
4. To save the already prepared sauce from lumps, try straining it.
5. The sauce should be stored in the refrigerator for no more than 2-3 days.
6. The sauce of ideal consistency flows evenly from the spoon.
Enjoy your meal!
White sauces are prepared on the basis of dairy products with the addition of various spices and seasonings, so they have a delicate consistency and pleasant taste. creamy taste. As the French say, with a good sauce you can even eat a newspaper. However, there is some truth in any joke, because ordinary dishes, if served with good sauce, turn into delicacies. Let's talk about how to make white sauce and what dishes it goes with.
Classic white bechamel sauce recipe
The author of this unique sauce is the personal chef of Louis XIV, Louis de Béchamel, and now the sauce is considered the most popular in European cuisine. Even a novice cook can prepare it, and the easiest way involves frying the flour in butter and then mixing it with milk.
Melt 50 g of butter in a frying pan or saucepan with a thick bottom, add 50 g of premium wheat flour and sauté over low heat until the flour acquires a pleasant golden hue. Gradually pour 1 liter of cold milk into the flour - literally 1 tbsp. l., so that lumps do not form. Bring to a boil and simmer the sauce over low heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens and resembles liquid sour cream. Add a pinch of salt and nutmeg to the bechamel, remove from heat and serve with salads, meat, fish, vegetables and side dishes. The sauce can be supplemented with fresh herbs, mushrooms, garlic and exotic seasonings.
Mornay sauce: a French classic with a modern twist
If you have mastered the technology of making white bechamel sauce, you can diversify the recipe by adding additional ingredients and replace the milk with sour cream, fermented baked milk or cream. Many other sauces are based on béchamel sauce, such as mornay, for which you will also need to fry 1 tbsp. l. flour in 50 g butter. Actually, this is where the similarity with bechamel sauce ends, because then 200 ml of cream is poured into the flour, brought to a boil with constant stirring, and when the sauce thickens, a pinch of nutmeg and 50 g of grated cheese - Parmesan, Gruyere or Emmental - are added to it. The sauce can be slightly salted, given that the cheese is already salty. When the cheese has dissolved in the cream, cool the mixture and stir in the yolk. Mornay is often used for baking, as it makes dishes juicy and tender.
Garlic sauce: recipe with photo
White garlic sauce is made with cream or sour cream and has an incredible taste and aroma. There are many recipes garlic sauce with various ingredients and seasonings. Try making a cream sauce, which is a bit like bechamel in that you have to fry the flour in butter along with the onions and garlic.
So, sauté finely chopped onion and 4 chopped cloves of garlic in 30 g of butter until golden brown, add 1 tbsp. l. flour and fry for 3 minutes. Pour 250 ml of cream into the mixture in a thin stream, stirring constantly to avoid lumps, bring the sauce to a boil, add salt and pepper and cool. This amazing gravy goes well with all dishes, but especially with potatoes, vegetables, meat and fish.
There is an easier way to prepare white sauce with garlic: add 8 tbsp. l. add sour cream, 6 cloves of garlic crushed to a pulp, a finely chopped bunch of dill and a little salt, and then everything is whipped with a submersible blender.
Tartar sauce: step-by-step recipe with photos
Another French sauce, which is made from boiled egg yolk and vegetable oil with the obligatory addition of green onions. Many cooks add chopped pickled cucumbers, garlic and capers to the tartare, although this is not necessary. A tasty and original dressing is ideal for fish and seafood, adding new fresh notes to their taste. Tartar sauce is easy to prepare at home; there are many recipes for it - it all depends on your preferences.
To prepare the sauce, hard-boil eggs and grind 2 egg yolks until finely crumbled. Add 1 tbsp to the mixture. l. mustard and beat with a blender until smooth, then gradually pour in 30 ml of vegetable oil, without stopping whisking. Salt and pepper the sauce to taste, pour in 1 tbsp. l. lemon juice, add 50 g of finely diced or grated pickled cucumbers and a few sprigs of any chopped herbs. Tartar sauce, the recipe with photographs of which you will find on the website, should not be stored for more than two days: it may spoil.
Tartar can be prepared in different variations - with sour cream and mayonnaise without eggs, add a little dry wine or Tabasco sauce, add tomatoes, mozzarella and different types of fish.
American white ranch sauce
The sauce was invented by an American rancher in Alaska, where youth groups stopped for picnics. They liked the white sauce with which they served salads so much that they soon began to sell it separately in small jars. It is very easy to prepare, and snacks with it turn out much tastier, as you can see for yourself.
Mix 250 ml of mayonnaise and 125 ml of sour cream, add half a finely chopped onion, a clove of chopped garlic, 1 tsp. dried green onions, dill and parsley, salt and pepper the sauce with black and white pepper, lightly sweeten with 1 tsp. Sahara. Instead of sour cream, you can use buttermilk, and dried herbs can be replaced with fresh ones, it will turn out much tastier. By the way, there is another one interesting option sauce where raw yolks are beaten with vegetable oil and milk in a water bath, mixed with garlic, herbs, salt, sugar and black pepper - this is a little more difficult to prepare.
The sauce should sit in the refrigerator for half an hour, then you can use it to dress salads.
White Egg Butter Hollandaise Sauce
An unusually tender and airy sauce is prepared on the basis of white sauce from 50 g of flour, fried in 50 g of butter and diluted with 1.1 liters of meat broth. The white sauce is cooked for 40 minutes with constant stirring. To avoid lumps, strain it through a sieve.
Then mix 6 egg yolks and 100 g of white sauce in a saucepan, heat in a water bath and mash well with a wooden spatula. When the mass thickens a little, pour 300 g of melted butter and 25 ml of lemon juice into it in a thin stream. Dilute the thickened sauce with a couple of tablespoons of meat, fish or vegetable broth, add salt, pepper and strain. Before serving, add thick whipped cream into the sauce and whisk until smooth, using 75 g of cream per 450 ml of sauce. White hollandaise sauce is served with fish and vegetables - it goes most harmoniously with it cauliflower and asparagus.
Sour cream sauce and its varieties
To prepare a variety of sour cream sauces, you first need to make a sour cream base. Fry 1 tbsp. l. flour in 20 g of butter, pour 300 g of sour cream brought to a boil into the butter flour, add salt, pepper and boil again for a few seconds. To the sour cream base you can add onion fried in butter, tomato puree, grated cheese, chopped boiled eggs, shrimp, capers, garlic, fried mushrooms, herbs and seasonings. Sour cream sauce is good for dressing salads, eating pancakes and pancakes with it, dipping dumplings and potato pancakes in it, and often serving it with dumplings, potatoes, meat and fish dishes.
A few secrets for making white sauces
Use only fresh ingredients for sauces, as the sauce will not be eaten immediately and will have to sit for several days. If you are preparing a broth-based sauce, cook meat broth on bones, fish broth on pre-cleaned heads and tails, and vegetable broth on fresh vegetables with the obligatory addition of fresh aromatic herbs.
Pour the liquid into the sauteed flour in small portions, rubbing thoroughly, because even microscopic lumps will spoil the taste of the dish. Instead of flour, you can use starch, in which case it does not need to be fried in oil. When using egg yolks as a thickener, do not bring the sauce to a boil, otherwise the yolks will cook. If the sauce turns out thick, add an ice cube to it - the consistency will become thinner, but the taste will not change.
For piquancy, the white sauce is seasoned with any spices; it always turns out soft and tender, because the milky-creamy taste mutes the harsh and spicy notes.
You can also make a sweet sauce for desserts, only in this case, instead of salt and pepper, sugar, honey, vanilla, cinnamon, cardamom and cocoa are added - this sauce is suitable for casseroles, cheesecakes and pancakes.
Life without sauces is boring and monotonous, so if you want to add some zest to your daily diet, serve your dishes with a gourmet dressing. Even ordinary boiled potatoes, topped with sour cream or cream sauce, looks like a delicacy. Live brightly and deliciously!
Cooking technology
“Main white sauce”
Cooking technology:
Pour sifted flour into the melted fat and sauté with continuous stirring, avoiding burning. Properly browned flour should have a slightly creamy color. A quarter of the hot broth is poured into sautéed flour, cooled to 60-70 °C, and stirred until a homogeneous mass is formed, then the remaining broth is gradually added. After this, add chopped parsley, celery, and onion to the sauce and cook for 25-30 minutes. At the end of cooking, add salt, black peppercorns, Bay leaf. Then the sauce is filtered, rubbing the boiled vegetables and brought to a boil.
“Steam sauce”
Cooking technology:
Add citric acid to the basic white sauce, bring to a boil and pour in the prepared wine. The sauce is seasoned with margarine or butter. The sauce is served with boiled and stewed dishes of veal, poultry and game.
“White sauce with egg”
Cooking technology: Raw egg yolks are combined with pieces of margarine or butter, cream or broth is added and boiled in a water bath at a temperature of 75-80 ° C, stirring continuously. As soon as the mixture thickens, add hot white main sauce at the same temperature, grated nutmeg, citric acid, salt. The sauce is served with boiled and stewed dishes of veal, poultry and game.
“White sauce with vegetables”
Cooking technology: Root vegetables and onions are cut into cubes, sautéed for 3-5 minutes, a little broth is added and simmered until tender in a container with a lid. Separately cook green beans and turnips or rutabaga. Before cooking, turnips and rutabaga should be doused with boiling water to remove odor and the water drained. The prepared vegetables are poured with white basic sauce, allowed to boil, citric acid and salt are added and seasoned with margarine or butter. The sauce is served with dishes of boiled lamb, veal, rabbit, poultry, as well as with steamed meat cutlets.
“White sauce with capers”
Cooking technology: The finished white sauce is seasoned with salt, citric acid, red pepper, heated capers without brine are added and seasoned with fat. The sauce is served with boiled pork, lamb, and rabbit dishes.
“Steam sauce with champignons”
Cooking technology:
Pour lemon juice into the main white sauce, add spices, chopped boiled champignons, bring the sauce to a boil and add wine. Season the finished sauce with butter.
Serve with boiled and poached meat dishes, chicken, chicken, veal, poultry cutlets, game and veal.
“White sauce with egg and sour cream”
Cooking technology:
Beat the yolks with sour cream and add a continuous stream into the main white sauce with constant stirring. Without stopping stirring, heat the sauce to 70-80° C (without boiling!). You can add a little dry white wine and lemon juice to the finished sauce.
Serve with boiled poultry, steam cutlets from veal, chicken, game and other dishes.
You need to start preparing the white sauce by sautéing the flour. To do this, you need to take a dry frying pan, pour flour into it and put it on fire slightly below medium. The flour in the frying pan must be constantly (!) stirred with a spatula so that it “fries” evenly. The color of the flour should change from white to light cream (not red, not brown, but a delicate cream shade).
If you overcook the flour and bring it to Brown, then you will not have a basic white sauce, but a red sauce (this is a separate type of sauce, and it also has the right to exist, but it has nothing to do with our recipe, so be careful and attentive).
As soon as the flour changes color, you need to turn off the heat and leave the pan to cool. The temperature should drop slightly - to about 60-70 degrees (this will take about 3-4 minutes).
Add ¼ of the prepared HOT broth to the slightly cooled flour and turn on the heat again.
A few words about the broth. It can be cooked from pork, beef, poultry or vegetables. If your broth contains salt, then this must be taken into account when adding salt to the finished sauce.
So, after adding ¼ of the broth to the flour, you will get a thick, lumpy mixture. At this stage, you need to stir very actively with a spatula or whisk, trying to break up all the lumps.
When the mixture becomes more homogeneous, you can add the remaining broth and stir the contents of the pan. The base should be quite liquid - this is how it should be, because the sauce will still cook for 25-30 minutes.
Finely dice the onion and parsley or celery root.
Add vegetables to liquid mixture and cook over low heat without a lid for 25-30 minutes. The sauce needs to be stirred from time to time.
During cooking, the vegetables will give off their aroma, and the finished sauce will have a delicate, barely perceptible taste of onions and roots.
How can you tell when the sauce is ready and you can stop the cooking process? Run a spatula across the bottom of the pan. If a path has formed and the sauce slowly flows inside, everything is ready.
Now you need to rub the sauce through a sieve to get rid of pieces of vegetables.
You can blend everything in a blender, but the taste of the sauce will be too bright and oniony.
So, use a spatula to rub the sauce through a fine sieve and return it to the frying pan or saucepan.
The sauce should be brought to a boil, but not boiled. As soon as small bubbles appear, turn off the heat.
Now you can add salt, butter to the sauce...
...and also add lemon juice to taste.
Most housewives are accustomed to serving meat with tomato-based gravy. However, in many countries other options for liquid seasonings are popular. meat dishes. These include, in particular, white sauce, which is served with meat in France and a number of other European countries. It is prepared from simple ingredients that almost every housewife has in their kitchen, has a pleasant light color and delicate taste. The cooking process has its own specifics, but it is not complicated, so even an inexperienced housewife can include white sauce in the daily menu.
Cooking features
When first trying to make white sauce, an inexperienced cook may encounter minor difficulties, which the advice of experienced chefs will help to overcome or even avoid.
- To prepare the sauce, use a saucepan, deep frying pan or saucepan with a thick bottom, as it is very important that the bottom is heated evenly to obtain a uniform consistency. For the same purpose, it is advisable to install a flame divider, electric and induction cookers and without this they ensure uniform heating.
- To make the sauce you will need a good whisk. It would be better if it had a silicone coating to protect kitchen utensils from unnecessary scratches that spoil the non-stick coating.
- The main component of white sauce is classic version is milk, but it is often replaced with cream, sour cream, broth. The main thing is that these ingredients are cold, so if you decide to use broth, then strain the required amount and put it in the refrigerator in advance.
- Be sure to make sure that before adding milk or cream to the sauce that it has not turned sour. Despite the fact that white sauce can be made from sour cream, sour milk is not suitable for it.
- Add milk or broth to the sauce gradually, whisking vigorously to avoid lumps. If such a problem does occur, strain the sauce and cook a little more - it will acquire the desired consistency.
- If you want the sauce to have a pleasant creamy hue and nutty flavor, fry the flour in a frying pan first, and only after it has acquired a caramel color, add butter and other ingredients.
The taste and aroma of white sauce largely depends on the bouquet of herbs and spices added to it. Thus, the famous béchamel sauce is a variation of white sauce, the peculiarity of which is the use of nutmeg and ground pepper (in the original - white).
Basic White Sauce Recipe
- milk – 0.25 l;
- butter – 20 g;
- wheat flour – 20 g;
- salt, spices - to taste.
Cooking method:
- Melt the butter by placing it in the microwave for a minute or heating it in a water bath.
- Sift the flour and fry it until creamy.
- Pour in the oil and whisk.
- Without removing the saucepan from the heat, pour the cooled milk into it in a thin stream, whisking it constantly.
- Cook the sauce for 5 minutes. During this time, it will have time to acquire the desired consistency.
Video recipe for the occasion:
Ready-made white sauce is best used hot. Most often it is used as a gravy. If it has cooled down by the time the dish is served, it is better to warm it up a little on the stove or in the microwave. A basic white sauce can become the basis for culinary experiments: by adding various spices to it, you can vary its taste, making it suitable not only for meat, but also for other products.
White sauce with sour cream
- wheat flour – 50 g;
- butter – 50 g;
- sour cream – 0.2 l;
- salt, spices - to taste.
Cooking method:
- Fry the flour in a frying pan.
- Add the oil and fry the flour with it for a minute or two.
- Add cold sour cream, whisk the contents of the pan vigorously.
- When the sauce boils, simmer it for 3-4 minutes.
This sauce is a little thicker than traditional sauce. Most often it is served with meat, but it also harmonizes well with other dishes, including potatoes and fish. Sour cream in the sauce can be replaced with heavy cream.
White bechamel sauce
- full-fat milk or drinking cream – 0.5 l;
- wheat flour – 25 g;
- butter – 25 g;
- cloves – 1 pc.;
- ground white or black pepper - on the tip of a knife;
- nutmeg - on the tip of a knife;
- salt - to taste.
Cooking method:
- Melt butter in a saucepan.
- Add the sifted flour and heat it with the butter for a minute.
- Pour milk or cream into the sauce in a thin stream, while whisking the sauce so that there are no lumps.
- When the sauce boils in the saucepan, add salt, nutmeg, and cloves. Stirring, cook for 5 minutes over low heat.
- Give the sauce time to cool slightly and strain it through a sieve so that it has as smooth a consistency as possible.
- Drain back into the saucepan and bring to a boil.
Before serving the bechamel sauce with the meat, it’s a good idea to warm it up. This sauce is also suitable for poultry, fish, pasta, and also for pizza.
White sauce with meat broth
- meat broth (preferably beef) – 0.5 l;
- wheat flour – 80 g;
- butter – 50 g;
- onions – 75 g;
- bay leaf – 2 pcs.;
- allspice peas – 5 pcs.;
- lemon juice – 5-10 ml;
- fresh dill – 20 g;
- fresh parsley – 20 g;
- salt, ground pepper - to taste.
Cooking method:
- Strain the cooked meat broth and cool.
- Cut the onions into small pieces, after peeling them.
- Wash and shake off the water from the greens.
- Fry the onion in butter until translucent.
- Fry the flour in a separate pan.
- Pour the creamy flour into the frying pan with the butter and onion and stir.
- Pour in the broth in a thin stream, whisking with a whisk. Whisk the sauce constantly and cook for a few minutes.
- Without chopping, add the herbs to the sauce. Add salt and spices there. It will be better if you tie the greens in a bunch and wrap the spices in gauze. Simmer the sauce for about 5 minutes.
- Remove the herbs and spices from the sauce. After a minute, you can remove it from the stove - it’s ready.
White sauce made with meat broth is usually served with meat. It goes well with other dishes, but not as well.
White sauce with cheese
- butter – 20 g;
- hard cheese – 50 g;
- milk – 0.3 l;
- flour – 50 g;
- garlic powder - a pinch;
- dried basil, salt, pepper - to taste.
Cooking method:
- Grate the cheese on a fine grater.
- Fry the flour in melted butter, add milk and prepare the sauce as per the basic recipe.
- Add salt, pepper, garlic, basil. Stir. Cook the sauce for a minute.
- Add the grated cheese and continue cooking until the sauce is smooth again.
This sauce is best suited to baked meat - it can even be cooked with this sauce. Also, many housewives make pizza with this sauce, especially if its filling includes minced meat, chicken or meat.
White sauce is one of the most popular gravies for meat. Once you learn how to cook it, you will never rack your brains over what to serve meat dishes with.
