A pale, light-bodied mother sauce made by thickening a clear white stock — veal, chicken or fish — with a blond roux. Smooth and ivory-coloured with the clean savour of good stock, its name comes from the French for velvet. Like espagnole it is chiefly a base: from veal velouté comes sauce allemande, from chicken velouté sauce suprême, and from fish velouté the classic white-wine sauces of seafood cookery.
Velouté was codified by Marie-Antoine Carême as one of the great foundational sauces of grande cuisine in the early 19th century, and Auguste Escoffier confirmed it among the five mother sauces in Le Guide culinaire (1903). The word is recorded as a culinary term in France from the early 18th century. Unlike béchamel, which is bound by milk, velouté is defined by being built on a clear, uncoloured stock, which makes it the lighter and more delicately flavoured of the two pale mother sauces.
Silky and lightly thickened, it slips across the tongue with the rounded savour of the stock it was built on — chicken velouté tastes gently of poached fowl, fish velouté of the sea. There is no heaviness and no dairy weight, only a clean, pale richness. A faint sheen and a smooth, even body are the marks of one made well.
A blond roux — flour cooked in butter just until it loses its raw smell but takes on no real colour — keeps the sauce pale while its starch gelatinises in the hot stock to thicken it. Because the stock is clear and gelatine-rich, the body comes from both the starch and the dissolved collagen; long, gentle skimming clarifies the surface, and straining yields the smooth, velvety texture that gives the sauce its name.
Variations
Veal velouté finished with an egg-yolk and cream liaison and a dash of lemon becomes sauce allemande; chicken velouté enriched with cream and butter becomes sauce suprême; fish velouté is the base of sauce normande and the white-wine sauces. Add mushroom cooking liquor for a sauce poulette, or chopped herbs for a herbed velouté.
On the Palate
Where Sauce Velouté sits in the French flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 8How it's made
5 steps · 20 min active + 15 min waiting
- 13 min
Melt butter in a saucepan and whisk in an equal weight of flour over low heat.
- 23 min
Cook the roux gently for a couple of minutes to a blond colour, just past the raw-flour stage.
Watch outCook the roux only to a blond color, just past the raw-flour smell — any real browning and the velouté loses its pale, delicate character.
- 36 min
Whisk in hot white stock a ladle at a time until smooth and lump-free.
- 418 min
Simmer slowly for 15 to 20 minutes, skimming the surface, until lightly thickened and glossy.
Watch outSimmer slowly and keep skimming the surface — patient skimming is what clarifies it to that smooth, velvety finish the sauce is named for.
- 53 min
Season with salt and white pepper and strain through a fine sieve before use.
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