Easy Vegan Bechamel Sauce Recipe | Vegan Lasagna Sauce (2024)

FAQs

What makes béchamel sauce thick? ›

Béchamel, at its simplest, is just milk that's been thickened with a roux made from roughly equal parts of butter and flour.

With a lovely creamy texture, cream cheese is a great bechamel alternative, as it's stable and won't split.

The basic ratio for a classic béchamel is 3 ounces of fat (butter, ghee, coconut oil) to 3 ounces of all-purpose flour for the roux. This ratio of roux will thicken up to a quart of milk, but you can use less milk for a thicker sauce, as we do below.

THE BOTTOM LINE: There's no reason to scald the milk for white sauce unless you're trying to infuse it with other flavors (onion or herbs, for instance). Not only does the scalding process take extra time, but using cold or room-temperature milk actually gives you a smoother sauce—and one less pot to wash.

Too much butter and your sauce will be weak and runny. The correct ratio is equal parts butter and flour, which is pretty easy to remember, but get out your measuring scales rather than trying to guess - 2oz of flour won't look the same as 2oz of butter if you're doing it by eye.

Although they look similar, the difference between bechamel and alfredo sauce is their ingredients. While bechamel sauce is made with milk and flour, alfredo sauce is mainly made with heavy cream and cheese.

A classic French sauce, a béchamel is made with flour, butter, and milk. It is used in many dishes from lasagna to macaroni and cheese to gratins and casseroles to croque monsieur.

This Bechamel Cheese Sauce also known as Mornay sauce is a classic Bechamel sauce flavored with Gruyere cheese or Parmesan cheese. It's the easiest cheesy sauce for steamed vegetables, egg benedicts, or casseroles. It's a French-inspired recipe that can be easily made in less than 20 minutes.

Bechamel is one of the easiest Mother Sauces to master. Hollandaise is arguably the hardest. The great thing about bechamel is that since it's only made with a few simple ingredients you can easily make a batch of this sauce and keep it refrigerated for a few days, using and flavoring it as needed.

Why add egg to béchamel sauce? ›

It enriches the sauce, helps it brown up when it's on the surface of a dish like a Moussaka or Pastit*o. But it's doesn't do much in terms of flavour. Add at your own discretion. Can I add eggs to béchamel sauce to improve the flavor?

You can elevate your béchamel by using brown butter, which adds a caramelized richness to the sauce. Brown butter is what happens to butter when you melt it in a pan and let the milk solids turn golden, giving it a roasted flavor.

Know your béchamel is done: A properly thickened roux should “coat the back of the spoon,” which means dip your spoon into the béchamel and then draw a finger through the coated spoon. Does the sauce wipe clean, leaving an open space? Then your béchamel is done and ready to add seasoning or cheese to.

Flour: All-purpose flour is the thickening agent in bechamel sauce. Combined with the melted butter, it forms a roux, which helps thicken the sauce and gives it that velvety consistency. Milk: Milk adds to the creaminess and helps bind the ingredients together.

Not cooking your roux the correct length of time.

Once it's reached the brown stage, it's lost some of its thickening ability and you will need more of it to thicken a sauce. On the other hand, for a béchamel, we need a white roux that's cooked just long enough so it doesn't taste like raw flour.

The most readily available sauce-thickener is flour. For a too-thin sauce, try adding a slurry (equal parts flour and water, whisked together) or beurre manie (equal parts softened butter and flour, kneaded together to form a paste)—both are ideal thickeners for rich and creamy sauces, such as steak sauce recipes.

It enriches the sauce, helps it brown up when it's on the surface of a dish like a Moussaka or Pastit*o. But it's doesn't do much in terms of flavour. Add at your own discretion. Can I add eggs to béchamel sauce to improve the flavor?