recipe · May 08, 2020

The Mother Sauces, The Prequel: Three Types of Roux

The five mother sauces form the basis for all sauces of classical cuisine. In this series, you will learn how to cook up each one: béchamel, velouté, espagnole, hollandaise, and tomato. But before you dive into these awesomesauces, we need to take a step back and cover the basics: roux.

Roux is a cooked mixture of fat and flour used to thicken sauces, soups, and stews. There are three main types of roux. White roux, commonly used in béchamel sauce and other white sauces, is only cooked long enough to eliminate the taste of raw flour. Blond roux is cooked a bit longer, so it develops a light brown hue. With this color development comes nutty flavor that lends itself well to sauces like velouté and even gravy. Brown roux is the darkest and most deeply flavored. It is more robust with a nuttier taste accompanied by hints of smoke. Brown roux can be cooked as long as 30 minutes and is used in sauces like espagnole. In terms of thickening power, white roux reigns supreme because the starch chains in the flour remain intact while blond comes in second since the extended cook time begins to break the starch chains down and brown roux has the least thickening power.

Prep Time: 1 minute
Cook Time: Varies

Ingredients

Yields enough to thicken 1 cup of milk or broth
⦁ 2 tablespoons unsalted butter or ghee
⦁ 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Directions

To make a white roux:

For a blond roux:

And for brown roux:

1. Heat the butter or ghee in a saucepan over medium heat.
2. Add the flour.
3. Stir frequently with a whisk or rubber spatula until the butter and flour form a thick paste and no raw flour remains.
4. Reduce the heat to medium-low and continue to cook while stirring constantly for 15-25 minutes or until the roux takes on a milk chocolate hue.

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