White sauce

Béchamel sauce

Milk infusing with bay leaf, peppercorns, shallot and flat-leaf parsley prior to being added to the roux
Alternative names	White sauce
Type	butter
Place of origin	Italy
Main ingredients	butter, flour, milk
Variations	Mornay sauce

Béchamel sauce (/bɛʃəˈmɛl/ or /beɪʃəˈmɛl/;French: Béchamel [beʃaˈmɛl]), also known as white sauce, is made from a white roux (butter and flour) and milk. Even though it first appeared in Italian cooking books (constituting one of the simplest sauces of the Italian cuisine), it is now considered one of the mother sauces of French cuisine. It is used as the base for other sauces (such as Mornay sauce, which is Béchamel with cheese).

Béchamel was a financier who held the honorary post of chief steward to King Louis XIV. The sauce first appeared in some Italian cooking books of the Renaissance, but was introduced under its familiar name in Le Cuisinier François, published in 1651 by François Pierre La Varenne (1615–1678), chef de cuisine to Nicolas Chalon du Blé, marquis d'Uxelles. The foundation of French cuisine, the Cuisinier François ran through some thirty editions in seventy-five years.