Monday, March 17, 2008

Make-it-Yourself Monday: White sauce

This week in Make-it-Yourself Monday, we're talking about white sauce. White sauce is simple, yet the results taste a whole lot better than the cream-of-whatever soups from a can! Once you're used to making it, it's fun to mess around with the recipe and make new variations... :-)

Basic White Sauce

2 T. butter
2 T. white flour
1/4 t. salt
1 C. milk

In a saucepan, melt butter. Add salt and flour, stirring constantly. Cook over medium heat until bubbly, then continue to cook for about five minutes. Add milk a little at a time, beating constantly. Cook on low heat until thickened (do not allow to boil). Use in recipes as you would cream soup or as a base for other sauces.

For some fun variations, you might try the following:

Cheese sauce: After sauce has thickened, turn off heat and add grated cheese. Stir until melted and mixed.

Mushroom sauce (use in place of cream of mushroom soup): Add sauteed mushrooms.

To view other Make-it-Yourself Monday features, click here.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this recipe. I think it can be the most powerful asset in preparing casseroles for just pennies.

Double the white sauce. Stir in what ever leftover rice or pasta you've got sitting in your fridge. Add some leftover meat (I like chicken, turkey or ham) and veggies (I like broccoli) that are hanging around from other meals. Toss some spices (salt and pepper for a start) and put a topping of crushed saltines moistened with melted butter. Bake the casserole 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

We call this Mustgo casserole. I've used countless leftovers in this casserole and it's saved us a lot of money. In fact, we try to alternate Mustgo casserole and Mustgo soup every other week.

I highly recommend learning to make white sauce and experimenting with different options.

Sally

lizzykristine said...

I make a basic white sauce for mac'n'cheese (also adding chives and parsley), but I've never thought of using it with mushrooms. Sounds like something to try!

Becky @ BoysRuleMyLife said...

I make the cream of mushroom soup with soy (because of dairy allergies in my son). It tastes SO MUCH BETTER than the canned stuff! (I also add a bit of onion, too). You can find my recipe (if you'd like to check it out) at www.mustfollowrecipes.blogspot.com



Also, just wanted to stop in and say... Tag You're It!
http://boysrulemylife.blogspot.com/2008/03/more-taggin.html

Jenn said...

Hi - my friend had a link to your blog for this sauce. I love the idea of using this instead of canned soup. I was wondering what you add to make this a substitution for cream of chicken soup? When you get a chance could you please let me know? Thanks for the recipe!!

Unknown said...

Jenn,

If I were making a substitute for cream of chicken soup, I would probably replace about a fourth of the milk with chicken broth, then add some cooked chicken pieces to the finished product. You can always play around with it, too, till you get it exactly how you want it. :-)