Chef Thomas
Anchovy Sauce
A proper white sauce sharpened with pounded anchovy, the old Georgian trick for waking up a piece of poached fish or a slice of roast lamb on a Sunday in spring.
Culinary Explorer
A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.
Cheese Sauce
Created by Chef Thomas
A proper cheese sauce, sharp with mature Cheddar and lifted with English mustard, the kind that turns a head of cauliflower into a reason to come home on a cold Tuesday.
Sauces & Condiments
British
Weeknight
Comfort Food
5 min
Active Time
15 min cook•20 min total
YieldAbout 500ml, enough for a generous cauliflower cheese or a good lasagne
This is a January sauce. Or a February one. Any evening when the dark comes in early and you need something the colour of a kitchen lamp on the table in front of you. Cheese sauce belongs to winter the way salads belong to July.
It starts with a roux, which is just butter and flour cooked together until they smell faintly biscuity, and then milk added slowly until you've got a smooth white sauce. That bit has a name and a French history and a reputation for being fussy, but it isn't. It's stirring. Pay attention for ten minutes and it does what it's told. The cheese goes in at the end, off the heat, with a teaspoon of English mustard that you might think is too much and isn't. The mustard doesn't make the sauce taste of mustard. It makes the cheese taste more of itself.
I make this most often for cauliflower cheese, which is the dish it was born for. But it goes over leeks, over macaroni, over a baked potato split open and steaming. Pour it over anything pale and slightly dull and you've turned dinner into something people will reach across the table for. We're only making dinner. But sometimes dinner is exactly enough.
I wrote it down in the notebook years ago, on a wet November evening: "Cheese sauce. Cauliflower. Rain on the window. Right food, right evening." That's still about all there is to say.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
unsalted butter
Quantity
50g
plain flour
Quantity
50g
whole milk
Quantity
500ml
mature Cheddar
Quantity
200g
coarsely grated
English mustard powder
Quantity
1 teaspoon
or a heaped teaspoon of made English mustard
nutmeg
Quantity
a grating
fine sea salt
Quantity
to taste
white pepper
Quantity
to taste
bay leaf (optional)
Quantity
1
for infusing the milk
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| unsalted butter | 50g |
| plain flour | 50g |
| whole milk | 500ml |
| mature Cheddarcoarsely grated | 200g |
| English mustard powderor a heaped teaspoon of made English mustard | 1 teaspoon |
| nutmeg | a grating |
| fine sea salt | to taste |
| white pepper | to taste |
| bay leaf (optional)for infusing the milk | 1 |
Equipment Needed
- •Heavy-bottomed saucepan
- •Small saucepan for the milk
- •Wooden spoon or small whisk
- •Box grater
Instructions
- 1
Warm the milk
Pour the milk into a small saucepan and drop in the bay leaf if you're using one. Bring it to just under a simmer over a gentle heat, then take it off and let it sit while you start the roux. Warm milk meets a hot roux without lumping. Cold milk fights you the whole way.
Don't let the milk boil. You want it warm, not scalded. A skin on top is a small nuisance you can fish out later, but it isn't a disaster. - 2
Make the roux
Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed pan over a medium-low heat. When it's foaming and smells nutty, scatter in the flour and stir straight away with a wooden spoon. It will turn into a pale, sandy paste. Keep it moving for a minute or two, until it loses the raw flour smell and starts to smell faintly biscuity. Don't let it colour. This is a white sauce, not a gravy.
- 3
Add the milk slowly
Now the patient bit. Pour in the warm milk a splash at a time, beating it into the roux with the wooden spoon or a small whisk. The first few additions will look like a tight, gluey paste. Don't panic. Keep going. Each addition loosens it a little more, and somewhere around the third or fourth pour the sauce surrenders and turns smooth and pourable. Then you can add the rest in larger glugs.
If you do get lumps, a quick whisk will sort most of them out. A stubborn sauce can be passed through a sieve and no one will be any the wiser. - 4
Cook the sauce out
Bring the sauce up to a gentle simmer, stirring all the while, and let it bubble away quietly for five minutes or so. This cooks the flour out properly. The sauce will thicken to the point where it coats the back of the spoon and a finger drawn across leaves a clean line. If it feels too thick, add a splash more milk. Too thin, give it another minute. You're after the consistency of double cream.
- 5
Melt in the cheese
Take the pan off the heat. Fish out the bay leaf if you used one. Add the mustard, the grating of nutmeg, and most of the cheese, holding back a small handful for the top of whatever you're using this for. Stir until the cheese has melted into the sauce and the whole thing is glossy and golden. Taste it. Salt, white pepper, more mustard if it needs sharpening. Trust your tongue.
Cheese added to a sauce that's still on the heat can split and turn grainy. Off the heat, every time. The residual warmth in the pan is plenty.
Chef Tips
- •Buy a proper block of mature Cheddar and grate it yourself. The pre-grated stuff is dusted with anti-caking agents that stop it melting smoothly, and the flavour is half what it should be. Five minutes with a box grater is all it takes.
- •English mustard is the one that matters here. French mustard is too soft, American mustard is too sweet. You want the heat that clears your sinuses and disappears as quickly as it arrives. It sharpens the cheese without anyone tasting mustard.
- •If you're making this for cauliflower cheese, undercook the cauliflower slightly before you sauce it. It'll finish cooking under the grill, and floppy cauliflower in good sauce is a small sadness.
- •A handful of grated Parmesan added with the Cheddar gives the sauce a savoury depth that's hard to place but easy to miss when it isn't there. Worth a try if you've got some in the fridge.
Advance Preparation
- •The sauce can be made a few hours ahead and kept warm in a bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water. Press a piece of buttered baking parchment or cling film directly onto the surface to stop a skin forming.
- •It will keep, covered, in the fridge for up to two days. Reheat gently with a splash of milk, stirring until smooth. Don't let it boil or the cheese can split.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 135g)
Calories
280 calories
Total Fat
21 g
Saturated Fat
13 g
Trans Fat
1 g
Unsaturated Fat
7 g
Cholesterol
65 mg
Sodium
425 mg
Total Carbohydrates
11 g
Dietary Fiber
0 g
Sugars
4 g
Protein
12 g
Where cooking meets culture.
Culinary guides, cultural storytelling, and the editorial depth that makes cooking meaningful.
Discover Culinary ExplorerMore from British Sauces & Gravies
Browse the full collection
Chef Thomas
Apple Sauce
A bowl of sharp, fluffy Bramley apple sauce, made in the time it takes to carve the pork, the kind of small condiment that quietly makes the whole meal make sense.
Chef Thomas
Beef Bone Stock
Beef bones roasted until dark, then coaxed for a long afternoon into a deep amber stock, the foundation of every good gravy, every braise, every bowl of winter soup worth the trouble.
Chef Thomas
Caper Sauce
A proper white sauce shot through with capers and a squeeze of lemon, the old companion to boiled mutton and salt beef, quietly waiting for someone to remember what it can do.