At the base of many tasty dishes there is certainly béchamel sauce, a dense and creamy sauce ideal to make any dish more sophisticated.

You can find it in many Italian dishes: from the starter to the first, up to the seconds, without neglecting side dishes or aperitifs.

In Italian the name is besciamella and there is a mystery about the origin of the famous sauce that for Italians has its roots in the Renaissance; it seems, in fact, it was born in Tuscany at the court of Caterina de’ Medici under the name of “Salsa Colla” and then reworked by the personal cook of Louis Bechamel, Marquis at the court of king Sun.

It is one of the basic sauces of culinary culture, and it is the fundamental ingredient to make from baked pasta to the most succulent lasagna, from gratin vegetables to hearty savory cakes

Ingredients

40 gr.=1.5 oz. butter 40 gr.=1.5 oz. flour 00/all -purpouse

1 l.=34 f oz.milk Nutmeg

Pinch =1tsp. of fine salt Pepper

Tools saucepan whisk spoons

Preparation

  1. In a pot on medium flame, melt the butter, add the flour and stir
  2. Pour the milk stirring constantly to avoid lumps, always stirring same direction
  3. Season with salt and a little nutmeg then simmer.
  4. Let cook for only a couple of minutes till it thickens.

Depending on the proportion between butter and flour , the final density of the béchamel sauce will change.

The longer it is cooked, the denser and firm the béchamel will be. In addition, to increase the amounts of béchamel sauce, an egg yolk can also be added to dissolve in hot milk.

Have a look at the recipes where we used it:

Lasagne

Green Beans Cooked in the Oven

Baked Pasta

Polenta
Mushroom Flans

Tuscan Cheese Crostoni

It’s possible to realize a light Béchamel with ingredients such as soya milk or rice milk, margarine instead of butter and finally corn starch or potato starch instead of flour. Remember that corn starch and potato starch aggregate faster than flour.

So everyone can have a good lasagna or cannelloni and all the other dishes. Buon appetito !