This basic cooking sauce recipe is also called bechamel sauce or white sauce. It can be made with cream, milk, or non-dairy milks.
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❤️ Why you'll love it
- The delicious sauce base is extremely versatile
- Skip the grocery store—I bet you already have the main ingredients
- Add a homemade touch to your favorite casseroles and pasta dishes
What's better than a steaming warm meal served with luscious, creamy sauce? Answer: being able to make that slurp-worthy sauce yourself!
This basic white sauce is anything but basic when you add it to your favorite pasta dish. Plus, the best part? Anyone can follow the easy recipe steps—and I mean anyone!
🧾 Ingredients
This is an overview of the ingredients. You'll find the full measurements and instructions in the green recipe card (printable) at the bottom of the page.
🔪 Instructions
This is an overview of the instructions. Full instructions are in the green recipe card at the bottom of the page.
- Melt butter in a medium saucepan over low to medium heat.
- Blend in all-purpose flour using a whisk.
- Add your milk or heavy cream slowly to the pan.
- Cook, stirring until thickened.
🥫 Storage
So, you've made a delicious, creamy pasta sauce—and you have some extra. Now what?
Carefully pour the leftover white cream sauce into an airtight container. Refrigerate it for four to seven days.
For best results, reheat the sauce in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, just until it's warmed again. Don't bring it to a full boil. If it's gotten a little too thick, add a splash of milk to thin it out a little bit.
A lot of people are surprised to learn that homemade white sauce recipes actually freeze well, too. They'll last in the freezer for around three months.
Let the sauce thaw in the fridge, first. It won't look normal at this point—but don't worry. Dump it in a pan over low heat and whisk it until it becomes the beautiful, smooth, creamy white sauce you've been daydreaming about all afternoon.
📖 Variations
Recipes call for white sauce in various consistencies. For example, a cream soup might have a thin cream sauce as a base while a sauce for vegetables might call for a thick one.
| Type | Milk | Butter | Flour | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thin | 1 cup | 1 Tbs | 1 Tbs | Cream soups |
| Medium | 1 cup | 2 Tbs | 2 Tbs | Sauce for vegetables |
| Thick | 1 cup | 3 Tbs | 3 Tbs | Binder for souffles |
Flavor variations
- Cheese sauce: stir in ¾ cup of cheese. Cheddar cheese is always a good option.
- Garlic cream sauce: saute 1 clove of garlic in the butter and remove it before adding the flour.
- Herb sauce: add 1 teaspoonful of fresh chopped herbs.
- Mustard sauce: stir in 1 tablespoon dijon mustard at the end of cooking.
- Mornay sauce: stir in ¼ cup Swiss cheese and a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg.
- Curry sauce: add ½ teaspoon curry powder.
- Soubise sauce: sounds fancy, but it's just white sauce with cooked pureed onions stirred in.
- Dairy-free white sauce: substitute dairy-free milk and olive oil for the milk and butter. Use 1 extra tablespoon of olive oil than the amount of butter called for.
- Mushroom sauce: add ¼ cup chopped, sauteed mushrooms.
- Celery sauce: add ¼ cup finely chopped, sauteed celery.
- Cream of chicken: add 1 teaspoon of chicken bouillon paste (Better than Bouillon. You could use a splash of chicken broth, but will likely need a little more flour to thicken it up—and the flavor won't be as strong as with bouillon.)
💭 Things to know
Expert Tip: Use a good wire whisk. Look for one that is less flimsy with more wire loops.
- Avoid non-stick-coated whisks. They are generally flimsier and not tough enough to break up stubborn clumps of flour.
- One of the easiest ways to check if your sauce is thick enough is to give it a stir with a wooden spoon. If it coats the spoon instead of immediately running off, you're getting there!
- Add salt and black pepper sparingly at first, especially if you're serving the simple sauce with other well-seasoned items. You can always add more spice later, but you can't take it away!
- Whole milk is a great option if it's your first time making white sauce and you are trying to pick a good milk.
- Thinner milks (like dairy free versions, skim milk, or low-fat milks) may create a thinner sauce. Add a little extra flour to thicken it more.
- There are plenty of dairy-free milk options—including coconut milk, almond milk, oat milk, soy milk, rice milk, and macadamia nut milk. They all have different flavors, so experiment to find your favorite.
- Often, Italian recipes will have you reserve some of the pasta water before straining the noodles. Mixing about a half cup of this starchy pasta water into your white sauce helps the white pasta sauce stick better to your noodles.
👩🍳 FAQs
You can! However, though similar, alfredo sauces aren't traditionally considered a bechamel sauce. You can still use this base (with heavy cream) to make an easy alfredo sauce recipe. Add parmesan cheese, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, and parsley. (Or try this fettuccine alfredo—it's better than Olive Garden's!)
There is a lot of discussion between famous chefs about whether you should stir hot milk, warm milk, or cold milk into a bechamel. Personally, I choose warm or room temperature milk. It's not cold enought that the sauce will splatter, but it's also not so hot that the sauce will boil before it has time to thicken.
So, perhaps you've heard, bechamel is one of the mother sauces, or according to French cusine, the five most important, basic sauce recipes. They are essentially the "mothers" of all other sauces out there, meaning, if you know how to make them, you can make any sauce you want! Nifty, huh?
📚 Related recipes
- Mole Sauce is an authentic Mexican sauce, perfect in everything from tacos to tostadas and burritos to beef—spicy, rich, and muy delicioso.
- Take French aioli up a notch with this Homemade Spicy Chipotle Aioli. Made with Chipotle in adobo—if you like Tex-Mex, you'll LOVE this.
- Creamy Vodka Sauce is a red sauce Italian staple, and so good over your favorite type of pasta. Make extra garlic bread so you can shovel all the addicting sauce straight into your mouth.
🍽️ Serve with...
Homemade white sauce is so versatile, you can serve it (or variations of it) in/with these delicious recipes:
📞 The last word
If you click on the number of servings in the recipe card you can adjust the measurements up or down for the exact number of servings you need. Don't forget that you can click on "add to collection" to save it to your own, private recipe box!
If you love this recipe please give it 5 stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Basic Cream Sauce
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Instructions
- Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium low heat.
- Add 2 tablespoons of flour to melted butter and stir with a whisk to prevent any lumps.
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Cook, stirring constantly for 2 minutes.
- Pour 1 cup of milk slowly into the butter-flour mixture and continue stirring, making sure there are no lumps.
- It will start thickening.
- Continue to cook and stir until thickened.
- Remove from heat.
Notes
- Avoid non-stick-coated whisks. They are generally flimsier and not tough enough to break up stubborn clumps of flour.
- One of the easiest ways to check if your sauce is thick enough is to give it a stir with a wooden spoon. If it coats the spoon instead of immediately running off, you're getting there!
- Add salt and black pepper sparingly at first, especially if you're serving the simple sauce with other well-seasoned items. You can always add more spice later, but you can't take it away!
- Whole milk is a great option if it's your first time making white sauce and you are trying to pick a good milk.
- Thinner milks (like dairy free versions, skim milk, or low-fat milks) may create a thinner sauce. Add a little extra flour to thicken it more.
- There are plenty of dairy-free milk options—including coconut milk, almond milk, oat milk, soy milk, rice milk, and macadamia nut milk. They all have different flavors, so experiment to find your favorite.
- Often, Italian recipes will have you reserve some of the pasta water before straining the noodles. Mixing about a half cup of this starchy pasta water into your white sauce helps the white pasta sauce stick better to your noodles.
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