The Gentle TableSimply delicious low fibre meals
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White sauce, the master recipe

One ratio the rest of the book leans on

Easy10 min hands-on · 15 min totalServes 2
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A pan of thick, glossy white sauce with a wooden spoon lifted out of it, coated in an even layer.

Doubles on the same ratio in a bigger pan. Keeps three days in the fridge. Freeze it flat in a bag so it defrosts quickly, in a thin sheet rather than one solid block.

Béchamel is the plainest of the mother sauces, and half the recipes in this book lean on it. The ratio never changes: equal weights of butter and flour, cooked together for a minute, then whisked with milk added gradually, off the heat, so no lump gets the chance to form. What comes out is smooth and pourable, with no character of its own, which is exactly the point. Cooled flat in a dish, it freezes for weeks, ready to become a fish pie or a bake on a low-energy day.

Suits after surgery, a narrowed bowel, chemotherapy diarrhoea, a new stoma, during pelvic radiotherapy, after a low anterior resection

Tags Batch-friendly · Freezes well · Vegetarian

Ingredients

Contains: Milk, Gluten

  • 30 gunsalted butter
  • 30 gplain white flour
  • 400 mlwhole milk
  • salt

Method

  1. Melt the butter in a small, heavy-based pan over a low heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until it looks like wet sand and smells faintly biscuity rather than raw.

  3. Take the pan off the heat and whisk in the milk a splash at a time, working out any lumps before you add more. Once a third of it is in, you can pour in the rest in a steady stream.

    If it does turn lumpy, take the pan off the heat and whisk hard for a few seconds, or push the finished sauce through a sieve into a clean pan.

  4. Return the pan to a low to medium heat and cook, whisking often, for 4 to 5 minutes, until the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon and hold a clear line when you drag a finger through it. Season with salt.

Watch-points

  • Use plain white flour, not a wholemeal or seeded blend.
  • Whisk the milk in gradually and off the heat to begin with, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of turning lumpy.

Make it more nourishing

  • Whisk 2 tablespoons of skimmed milk powder into the milk before it goes in, for about 8 g more protein and 85 kcal across the batch.
  • Use half milk and half single cream for a sauce with real body, useful under a bake that needs to hold its shape.
  • Stir an extra 15 g of butter into the sauce once it is off the heat, for a glossier finish and more calories in every spoonful.

Swaps

Instead of the butter-and-flour roux, use 20 g of cornflour, slaked in a little cold milk before it goes in
gives a naturally thinner sauce with no risk of a lump, and no roux to cook first
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