11 Béchamel-Based Sauces You Should Know

We won't lie to you — French cooking is complicated, time-consuming, and requires a lot of culinary knowledge. That said, there are quite a few patterns and shortcuts to it that you may not be aware of. The French mother sauces (which include béchamel, hollandaise, espagnole, velouté, and tomato) are a great example. Every single sauce in the French cooking canon is based on one of these five sauces. By adding ingredients to a mother sauce, you can transform it into five, ten, or even a dozen other distinct sauces. That means you're well on your way to accessorizing hundreds of dishes with just a few simple tweaks.

Take béchamel for example. The standard recipe calls for a white roux (made from butter and flour), milk, salt, and nutmeg. By adding cheddar cheese to the original recipe, you can make a delectable macaroni and cheese base. Adding sautéed and puréed onions to béchamel transforms it into soubise, a sauce perfect for dressing vegetables, chicken, and eggs. There are lots more sauces you can make from this simple French mother sauce, so if you're curious to learn them all, then keep reading.

A popular accompaniment to pasta and fish dishes, mornay sauce is made by adding cheese to a béchamel base. The classic recipe calls for the addition of nutty Gruyère and tangy Parmesan (about two ounces of each type per three and a half cups of béchamel), but this simple sauce lends itself well to experimentation. For instance, cheeses like cheddar and mozzarella work equally well and may be a better fit depending on what you're cooking.

All you have to do is to stir the cheese into the béchamel sauce and stir until it melts. That said, there are a few variations to play around with if you're feeling brave. The first involves whisking egg yolk and some nutmeg into the sauce after the cheese has melted. Alternatively, you could try adding an onion pique (aka a bay leaf attached to a peeled onion with cloves). After you've perfected your mornay sauce recipe, feel free to use it in a variety of dishes. It works just as well in baked ziti and macaroni and cheese as it does on top of nachos or scrambled eggs.

Named after Nantua, a small town in eastern France located between Lyon and Geneva, Nantua is a classic seafood sauce and one of the more unique béchamel sauce variations. It's made by combining béchamel with cream, crayfish butter, and crayfish tails. Crayfish butter and tails may sound like strange additions, but their presence makes a lot of sense when you consider Nantua's location. The commune sits on a 348-acre glacier-fed lake that's absolutely teeming with the aforementioned freshwater crustaceans.

Crayfish butter is made by combining cooked and puréed crayfish with butter. These two ingredients are then melted together and strained through a cloth. The resulting product is collected in a bowl of ice water, a crucial step that causes the butter to congeal. Once the butter has solidified enough, it's removed from the water and patted dry. This process ensures that the butter is scented with crayfish but does not contain any pieces of the animal. The crayfish butter and crayfish tails are then melted into the béchamel, resulting in a red-hued sauce that's perfect for pairing with fish and seafood dishes. In its place of origin, Nantua sauce is served with quenelles de Brochet (aka pike dumplings).

Thanks to their rich flavor and numerous health benefits, we're big fans of adding anchovies to recipes, and béchamel sauce is no exception. As if their complex flavor and nutritional profile weren't enough, anchovies are incredibly easy to cook with. Indeed, you can whip up this satisfying anchovy béchamel in just a few minutes.

In addition to the tiny, silvery fish, this salty and savory sauce contains garlic, thyme, mustard, vinegar, and black pepper. Once you've assembled the ingredients, toss them into a food processor and purée for about a minute (or until you obtain a homogeneous mixture). Then, heat the anchovy paste and béchamel together until warm. From there, experiment with using it as a dipping sauce for bread, a topping for fish, or as a seafood soup base. If you're feeling really adventurous, you can even try pouring a bit over a chicken breast or a steak.

Don't get us wrong — we're big béchamel fans. But have you ever noticed how this classic French sauce has a tendency to be a bit bland? One look at the ingredients list is enough to tell you why: butter, milk, and flour. Not exactly a flavor party. Luckily, it only takes one ingredient to transform your béchamel from boring to bodacious. Even better, it's an ingredient you probably have lying around the house.

So, what's the secret ingredient to this life-changing béchamel variation? Mustard, plain and simple. There are a couple of different ways to make mustard béchamel. The first is to add one teaspoon of dry mustard into the roux as they're thickening on the stove. Once the liquid is bubbling, whisk in the milk and continue making the béchamel as you normally would.

If you don't have dry mustard laying around the house, you can use Dijon mustard instead. For this option, add two tablespoons of mustard after adding milk to the roux. Whisk all of the ingredients together, then season with nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Cook the sauce for several minutes until it thickens. Like a lot of béchamel sauce variations, this one is incredibly versatile. For example, you can use it on top of fish, chicken, pork, or lamb. It's also a lovely addition to a croque monsieur sandwich.

French cooking is typically pretty restrained, prioritizing simple, fresh ingredients over fancy, expensive ones. However, certain dishes throw all of that out the window and go completely hog wild with the ingredients. Nowhere is that more true than with cardinale sauce (sometimes written as cardinal sauce). This classic red-hued French sauce is made by combining béchamel with fish stock, tomato paste, sherry, truffles, cream, lobster shells (or shells from other crustaceans), and cayenne pepper. We told you it was extra.

The ingredients may sound fancy, but luckily the preparation doesn't require any special skills. You'll start by making a broth out of the chopped lobster shells, stock, and mirepoix. Once the ingredients have cooked down a bit, add some sherry and tomato paste, letting them reduce as well. Place the mixture into a food processor until you obtain a mash. Cook that with some heavy cream and shave some black truffles on top just before serving. Serve this over-the-top sauce with stuffed pasta such as ravioli, tortellini, or gnocchi.