How to make roux sauce

Learning to make a roux sauce is useful for all sorts of recipes. In essence, a roux is a kitchen-made thickening agent that you can use to make any liquid-based food richer and more substantial. A roux sauce is often made for gravy, cheese sauce, soup, custard, chowder and even curry sauce.

How to make a roux?

To make a roux, you need to mix fat with flour in roughly equal quantities so that they form a paste-like consistency. It is important to note, however, that a roux is not created to consume on its own. After making a roux, you need to add further ingredients – typically stock or milk.

The simplest method for making roux sauce is as follows:

1. Melt some butter in a saucepan. Use medium to low heat, to turn it into a liquid.
2. Next, sprinkle flour over the top of your melted butter. Distribute it evenly, and stir it into your butter so that no clumps of flour form.
3. As the flour starts to absorb the melted butter, some of it will start to bind together. At this point, while still stirring, you can remove the saucepan from the heat to help prevent burning the roux.
4. Set the roux to one side until you are ready to add the liquid, to make your sauce.
5. When you’re ready, return the roux to the heat and add your chosen liquid gradually, so that all of the paste dissolves, stirring continually.

Roux sauce methods

There are two main flours to use for a roux sauce. Both are combined with melted butter, as outlined above, but you can use other fats, such as vegetable oil or lard.

Plain flour is generally used for a roux sauce. Sieve the flour before adding it to the fat to help avoid forming lumps. Remember to use fat and plain flour in approximately equal quantities.

If you would like a thicker sauce, for example, for making custard or béchamel sauce, then use corn flour instead. The method is the same, only that corn flour contains more starch than plain flour, so the resulting sauce will be thicker.

Roux sauce recipes

Roux sauces form the basis of many sauces and soups. Try the HelloFresh Cauliflower Mac and Cheese recipe for a typical example of how the roux forms the foundation of the cheese sauce. Another luscious recipe that features a roux sauce is the Ultimate Creamy Chicken and Bacon Rigatoni Bake with cheddar cheese and broccoli.

If you’d like to know how to make gravy from a roux sauce, then follow this Crispy Chicken and Gravy Burger recipe as a guide. You can customise it to complement any meat-based dish, adding a rich and flavoursome gravy to elevate the taste.

FAQs

What are the steps to making a roux?

Melt fat, ideally butter, in a saucepan and stir in sprinkled flour. Mix the two ingredients until they are thoroughly combined. From the resulting paste — or roux — you can now make a wide range of sauces.

What is roux sauce made of?

Butter and flour are the two main ingredients of any roux, but you can also add salt and pepper to season it to your preference. You can use other fats or oils, as well as opt for plain or corn flour.

What is the formula for a roux?

The basic formula for any successful roux sauce is one part fat to one part flour. This means using them in similar quantities, but remember to add your flour to the fat, not the other way around, and to keep stirring throughout the process.

What is the correct ratio for a roux?

Only a small amount of roux is usually enough for most recipes, with just 50g of fat and flour being sufficient to thicken half a litre of fluid. For richer sauces, use corn flour since the additional starches will offer a thicker consistency when thoroughly combined with liquid. As a result, you won’t have to use greater quantities of roux ingredients.