Bechamel sauce is not one of the easiest sauces if you don't know the trick, but if you learn how to make it you'll use it often in a variety of recipes! And it takes only 10 minutes.
Ingredients to get 1.5lt of sauce:
200 gr butter
200 gr flour (cream flour, not self raising)
2 litres milk (you can use concentrated vegetable broth with some soy cream)
A pinch of fine salt
A pinch of grated nutmeg
A pinch of freshly ground black pepper
Method:
Start by bringing your milk almost to the boil; once it’s very hot, place it on a hob next to your sauce pot, put a ladle in it and keep it on a medium heat to maintain the temperature
Make the “roux”: put the butter into a pot with a heavy bottom on medium heat until it melts completely (but don't let it go brown)
Take the pot off the heat and add the flour in one single go – start mixing well until the flour has fully absorbed the butter
Return the pot back on the hob on a medium heat and cook it fully for at least 4 minutes, stirring continuously. Make sure that the roux does not go brown on you!
The difficult part starts now: take the pot off the heat and add the hot liquid two ladle-spoons at a time and immediately (and continuously) stir the roux
When the liquid has been completely absorbed (and the first couple of times it will take only seconds), add another 2 ladle spoons and immediately stir
Again, add another 2 ladle spoons. At this point the roux would have absorbed all the milk and it would be starting to transform into a sauce
Place the pot back onto the hob on a very low heat, then continue adding the liquid one ladle-spoon at a time, waiting at each stage that the liquid is well absorbed before adding more
Continue to add ladle-spoons until the sauce has reached the right consistency for your recipe (for my lasagne, I use all the liquid listed here, but for other preparations I keep it thicker, so I stop adding the liquid towards the end)
The trick consists in always stirring and always ensuring that the previous liquid has been fully absorbed before adding the next ladle spoon
Once it’s ready, dress it with salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste