Three Ways to Thicken Sauce (Cornstarch, Roux, Beurre Manie) | Cook's Illustrated (2024)

FAQs

Three Ways to Thicken Sauce (Cornstarch, Roux, Beurre Manie) | Cook's Illustrated? ›

Use one tablespoon cornstarch mixed with one tablespoon cold water (aka a cornstarch slurry) for each cup of medium-thick sauce. Thoroughly mix the cornstarch and water together, then pour into your sauce. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly.

Use one tablespoon cornstarch mixed with one tablespoon cold water (aka a cornstarch slurry) for each cup of medium-thick sauce. Thoroughly mix the cornstarch and water together, then pour into your sauce. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly.

The methods for preparing a small sauce from a mother sauce include the sauté and deglaze method, the reduction method, and the gastrique method.

Roux begins to thicken soon after it is combined with a liquid, but it must be simmered for 10 to 20 minutes in order to reach its full flavor and thickening potential. This additional cooking time allows the flour to soften and absorb the liquid, resulting in a silky smooth soup or sauce.

As we mentioned, flour and cornstarch are the most popular ingredients used to thicken butter sauce for pasta. After you've heated your butter and water combo in your skillet, turn your heat down so nothing scorches as you work in the dry ingredients.

Use another thickening agent.

You can simply add a thickening agent to sauces, stews, stir-fry dishes, or gravies to thicken. In addition to cornstarch, popular thickeners include pantry staples like flour, gelatin, potato starch, and tapioca starch, among others.

Roux (/ruː/) is a mixture of flour and fat cooked together and used to thicken sauces. Roux is typically made from equal parts of flour and fat by weight. The flour is added to the melted fat or oil on the stove top, blended until smooth, and cooked to the desired level of brownness.

Cornstarch is a common thickening agent in the culinary arts, but if you add it directly to the liquid you want to thicken, it will clump up. To thicken a sauce or soup with cornstarch, you first need to make a slurry, which is a mixture of equal parts cornstarch and liquid (usually water, stock or wine).

Refined starches are popular as thickening agents because they are lighter than a roux, neutral-flavored, and swell quickly when added to hot liquids. Refined starches, including arrowroot, cornstarch, potato starch, and rice flour, are also preferred alternatives for gluten-intolerant diets.

How to Make a Roux Without Flour. Roux is commonly made with flour, but you can also sub in cornstarch or arrowroot powder. Mix the cornstarch or arrowroot powder with water to form a slurry before adding it to the pan and cooking it with the fat.

How does starch thicken a sauce? ›

As a white sauce is heated, the starch grains soften, they absorb liquid & swell. The starch grains break open & thicken the liquid by releasing amylose. The process of gelatinisation starts at 60◦, the sauce begins to thicken at about 85◦ but it's not fully completed until it reaches 100◦.

The three main ingredients you can use to thicken a soup are flour, cornstarch, and xantham gum.

Another way of using starch to thicken a sauce is with a cornstarch slurry. Cornstarch gives sauces a glossy sheen, like in sweet sauces and pie fillings, as well as in many Chinese sauces and stir-frys. Combine a small amount of cornstarch with cold water to form a slurry, and then mix that into your simmering sauce.

Starches. This category includes starches as arrowroot, cornstarch, katakuri starch, potato starch, sago, wheat flour, almond flour, tapioca and their starch derivatives. A flavorless powdered starch used for this purpose is a fecula (from the Latin faecula, diminutive of faex, "dregs").