How to Make the French Mother Sauce

If you plan to make outstanding mac and cheese at home, you need to start with a great béchamel.

Béchamel is one of the French mother sauces that provide the backbone of so many great recipes. At its most basic level, béchamel is a roux and dairy: combine flour with butter and then add milk or cream. But it can be so much more flavorful and refined, and acclaimed chef Adam Sobel shows us how.

Sobel is a partner at Mina Group, serving as the vice president of concept development for celebrity chef Michael Mina’s 30-plus restaurants across America and Dubai, including the hit Charleston, S.C. Italian restaurant Sorelle. The chef cut his teeth under culinary legends that include Daniel Boulud, Gunter Seeger, Charlier Trotter, and Guy Savoy. He first connected with Mina while working for the acclaimed chef’s Bourbon Steak in Washington, D.C.

In this episode of Robb Report’s How to, Sobel shares his method for how he creates béchamel sauce, making it in half the time it would traditionally take. He also shows how he infuses flavor into his sauce, with aromatics and spices, and talks about how you can customize the recipe for your own tastes.