White Sauce – Simple Thrift and Herbs

White sauce is a really basic thing that you can tweak to make other things. Plain white sauce, made thicker, can be used as a binder for things like croquettes. Thin it out and it can become a cream soup or the base for potato soup. Add cheese and it becomes the base for scalloped potatoes or mac and cheese.

At medium thickness, it can become gravy – white country gravy with lots of pepper or sausage gravy. And white sauce is easy to make.

Start by melting some fat – butter, sausage drippings if you’re making sausage gravy, or bacon grease. You DO save your bacon grease, right? This looks a little darker because it is bacon grease,

Now add the same amount of flour. There are ways to make gluten free white sauce, but that is a post for another day.

It will look thick and gloopy. It should start to look dull – lose its shininess. You’ll see it start to stick to the bottom of the pan. It’s important to keep stirring so it doesn’t burn.

At this point, you have made a roux. Roux is a thickening agent, but can also be used for flavor if you let it go darker. But – we are making white sauce, so you want a lighter or ‘blonde’ roux.

Next we are going to add milk.

I was making this for scalloped potatoes, so I used dry milk that I had reconstituted. If your white sauce will be flavored with cheese or sausage, I find I can use dry milk to save money. If I was making something with more delicate flavors, I would use regular milk. Dry milk always seems to taste a little burnt to me, so I try to use it only in items that have additional flavors to cover it up. The amount of milk you add determines whether your sauce is thin, medium, or thick.

Cook over medium heat until your sauce comes to a low boil. Even thin white sauce should coat a spoon when it’s done.

At this point, you can add sausage or mushrooms for gravy. If your sauce is thinner, potatoes and onions or broccoli and cheese for soup. If you are making croquettes, your sauce will be a lot thicker and you can stir in meat to make your base.

I’m making cheese sauce, so that’s what I added.