Foolproof Béarnaise Sauce Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What are the ingredients in a Béarnaise sauce? ›

Béarnaise sauce is a piquant child of hollandaise, one of the so-called mother sauces of French cuisine. It is simply an emulsification — egg yolks and butter cut through with vinegar flavored with tarragon and shallots, with a bite of black pepper.

Irresistibly creamy, buttery, and rich, Béarnaise combines an herby, slightly acidic reduction of white wine, vinegar, shallots, fresh tarragon, and lemon juice with hollandaise to make a luscious sauce for spooning over grilled steak, chicken, fish, or vegetables.

If your béarnaise is thin and runny, transfer to a large bowl set over a pot of barely simmering water. Whisk constantly and vigorously until sauce is thickened.

Put egg yolk in a clean bowl. Whisk it then add the broken sauce drop by drop with continuing to whisk. If you don't have 3 hands or a way to hold the bowl still, you may want someone to help you. Whisk until the sauce is creamy and hom*ogeneous.

To make Béarnaise Sauce, you need: white wine vinegar, white wine, butter (which we clarify – more on this below), egg yolks, tarragon, chervil and eschalots/shallots (the small sweet onions sometimes called French eschalots.)

It's what happens next that sets them apart: Hollandaise gets its acidity from lemon juice (sometimes vinegar) and is usually seasoned with salt, white pepper, and cayenne pepper. Béarnaise, meanwhile, builds upon hollandaise with white wine vinegar, shallots, tarragon, and other fresh herbs.

Sauces are the melding of ingredients, including stocks, wine, aromatics, herbs, and dairy, into a harmonious taste.

sauce béarnaise effect

a colloquial term referring to a conditioned taste aversion. If a person happens to become ill after tasting a new food, such as sauce béarnaise, they may subsequently dislike and avoid that food. Regardless of the actual cause of the illness, the sauce will be identified with it.

Trouble: Curdled sauce.

The first step in making a hollandaise and béarnaise sauce, is to gently heat egg yolks. Too high of a temperature coagulates the protein in the yolks of an egg based sauce and begins to cook them, resulting in a grainy sauce that might taste like cooked egg.

What will happen to a bearnaise sauce if it gets to hot? ›

Overheating spells disaster — the béarnaise will curdle. But if you take your time, you will end up with a beautiful satiny sauce that has been one of the glories of the French table since it was first created almost 200 years ago.

You also can skip the vinegar and use only white wine, but this removes the acidic "bite" from the sauce, in my opinion. You might like it better this way! I recommend you do it with Julia's proportions the first time.

Lower the temperature to 60 ºC and add the egg yolks while whisking. The egg yolks will thicken the sauce even more. When your sauce is creamy and delicious, you can season it with salt and chopped tarragon. Depending on how thick you want your béarnaise, you can add a little water to dilute it.

aʁ. nɛz]) is a sauce made of butter, egg yolk, white-wine vinegar, and herbs. It is regarded as a "child" of hollandaise sauce. The difference is only in the flavoring: béarnaise uses shallot, black pepper, and tarragon, while hollandaise uses white pepper or a pinch of cayenne.

BUT don't despair you can save your Béarnaise sauce. Simply start the whole process again with fresh egg yolks and instead of the using melted butter this time, use the split egg mixture slowly incorporating until the sauce is glossy and smooth again.

If you use mayonnaise instead, however, you don't have to worry about the egg and butter separating and can use just a regular saucepan. As NPR explains, tumeric colors the sauce so it looks like the real thing, and the mayo substitute tastes like a real béarnaise as well—just with less effort.

Béarnaise sauce is commonly paired with grilled fish or steak, but it's just as delicious on roasted vegetables or eggs Benedict. Spoon this silky, herby sauce over roasted asparagus, steamed broccoli, or grilled mushrooms for a sophisticated dinner party side.

No, bearnaise sauce is not like mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is a mixture of eggs, oil and vinegar. Although bearnaise sauce contains eggs and oil, it also contains mustard, shallots and tarragon. These additional ingredients give bearnaise sauce a unique flavor that is unlike mayonnaise.