Cheesy Béchamel Sauce, Bitches!

Cheesy Béchamel Sauce, Bitches!

Do you love mac and cheese? Or cheese in general? Time to meet your new best friend: Béchamel sauce. Super easy to make, only three ingredients, and you can do tons with it. Like convert into Mornay sauce by adding cheese to it. And then dump in cooked pasta to make adult-level mac and cheese that kills anything that comes in a box.

 

Words Of Warning:

This cooks up quickly (about ten minutes, start to finish) and requires constant supervision or it'll burn. Have your ingredients measured up (especially the milk) and ready to go BEFORE starting.

Also, if you're trying to eat healthy, might as well leave now as this isn't for you.

 

Cheesy Béchamel/Mornay Sauce

1 1/2 cups of butter (3 sticks), divided
1/2 cup All Purpose Flour
3 cups Milk (For the love of God, use whole milk from whole cows.)
1 1/2 pounds of your favorite cheese(s), shredded - mix and match to suit your tastes/purposes!
Seasoning to taste (e.g., salt/pepper)

Yields: About eight cups of cheesy goodness.

1. Locate a 5 qt. sauce pan. Use it to melt 1/2 cup (one stick) of the butter over medium heat.

2. When the butter is melted, evenly sprinkle in the flour to cover the butter. Yep, we're making a roux.

3. Start stirring. And KEEP STIRRING. The mix will begin to change color, from buttery gold to yellowish to brown. When it hits a light brown, you've reached the point you want. Beware the quickness of the roux - you'll have about a two-minute window (or less!) once it starts to turn color and it'll go from barely changed to burned in a flash if you're not watching what you're doing!

4. Pour in about a cup of the milk. The roux will almost immediately harden into lumpy claylike weirdness. This is normal and expected. Beat the hell out of the milky lumpy mess to break up the lumps. Gradually mix in the rest of the milk. Note that the sauce wil begin to thicken pretty quickly.

5. Whisk the everloving hell out of the milky roux as the milk heats to boiling. You'll want to have a smooth mix with no lumps.

6. When the mix reaches boiling it'll already be pretty thick. At this point, drop in the other two sticks of butter. Back the heat down to low. Continue stirring until both sticks have melted and completely mixed in.

7. Unceremoniously dump in the cheese. Continue stirring until the cheese has melted, and then for another few minutes until everything is smoothly mixed.

8. Season to taste. If you're using salty cheeses you probably won't need much if any additional salt. Note that you can tweak the seasonings and cheese(s) to do whatever you want to do.

 

This does store in a fridge overnight, but is really best when made fairly close to time to eat it. If it gets too thick, heat it up on low heat and thin it out with milk.

If you followed instructions properly, you should end up with a pot full of a smooth, thick cheese sauce that will be the stuff of mouthgasms depending on what you do with it.

 

Some suggestions:

- This recipe makes enough cheese sauce to make a family-sized amount of mac and cheese. This recipe will sufficiently cheese up two pounds of cooked elbow noodles. To adult it even more, after mixing in the noodles, pour into lasagna pans, top with more cheese, and broil until the tops are golden and just ever so slightly crispy. Add in bacon crumbles if you're brave enough.

- Use cheese blends to maximum effect. Can't go wrong with Cheddar, Havarti, and Gruyere, for example. Or, if you're rolling TexMex, try Colby, Monterrey Jack, Queso Blanco and Cotija. Or try some mac and cheese with Cheddar, Mozarella, and Pepper Jack.

- Make it extra thick (cook on low heat a while longer than normal, again stirring constantly) and thin it back out with your favorite beer for beer cheese sauce worthy of the finest backyard burger.

- Use Italian cheeses (say, Mozarella, Ricotta, and a good Parmesan) and Italian seasoning mix, stir in diced pizza toppings, and serve with crusty bread for the pizza dip of your dreams.