Easy Bearnaise Sauce Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What are the ingredients in a bearnaise sauce? ›

Béarnaise sauce is a piquant child of hollandaise, one of the so-called mother sauces of French cuisine. It is simply an emulsification — egg yolks and butter cut through with vinegar flavored with tarragon and shallots, with a bite of black pepper.

It is regarded as a "child" of hollandaise sauce. The difference is only in the flavoring: béarnaise uses shallot, black pepper, and tarragon, while hollandaise uses white pepper or a pinch of cayenne. The sauce's name derives from the province of Béarn, France.

Melt until hot and use per recipe. 6. Tarragon is the signature herb of Béarnaise, so you really can't substitute this! Chervil can be substituted with parsley.

Parsley and Cinnamon

This is one of the best substitutes if you're making bearnaise sauce and realize you're out of fresh tarragon. Simmer a 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and a tablespoon of parsley in a 1/4 cup of water. Don't boil the mixture, but allow it to simmer for several minutes.

Béarnaise instead relies on punchy white wine vinegar, sometimes in concert with fresh lemon. The second major difference is that béarnaise sauce is flavored with sautéed shallots, black pepper, and licorice-like tarragon, occasionally among other fresh herbs.

What is Béarnaise Sauce? Béarnaise sauce is a delicious and creamy classic French sauce that is often made from a reduction of vinegar and wine mixed with shallots, tarragon, and (sometimes) chervil and thickened with egg yolks and butter. It's typically served with meat, fish, eggs, or vegetables.

Hollandaise is an egg yolk mixture emulsified with unsalted butter and acid. Hollandaise is what is known as a French mother sauce, meaning it can be used to make a range of other sauces, including béarnaise. Béarnaise sauce builds on hollandaise with egg yolks, butter, white wine vinegar, shallots, and tarragon.

Hollandaise is pale yellow, smooth, and creamy. It's often used to to eggs Benedict, asparagus, and fish.

Yes, you can make a "light Bearnaise" with olive oil, in fact Gordon Ramsay has done it before and it's featured in a recipe somewhere. Just warm the oil slightly (as you would warm the ghee/clarified butter in an actual Bearnaise sauce,) to keep the temperature correct.

If the recipe calls for dried tarragon, your options open up a bit. Dried marjoram, oregano, basil, dill, or even rosemary or fennel or anise seed (in a pinch) will work well.

How do you thicken bearnaise sauce? ›

– If the sauce won`t thicken, mix 1 tablespoon lemon juice and 1/2 tablespoon of the sauce in a clean bowl over heat. Beat until they come together, then add the rest of the thin sauce 1/2 tablespoon at a time. – If the sauce starts to separate, add an ice cube or a tablespoon of cold water and whisk briskly.

The fresh herb that is most similar in taste to tarragon comes from fennel, a bulb vegetable with delicate leafy fronds. Both the root and the fronds are edible. I recommend using the fronds roughly chopped in place of fresh tarragon when possible.

It's also an herb which can be used in the same dish both dry and fresh as BOTH uses take on their own unique flavor properties and truly complement each other in the recipe. Such as is the case with sauce Bearnaise.

Tarragon grows well in a container, but only for a season. After that, its roots outgrow the pot, and it loses flavor.

Hollandaise has lemon as the acid and bearnaise has white wine vinegar reduced with tarragon and shallots. So now that we know the difference between the two sauces what best pairs them with? For Bearnaise, it is traditionally served with steak, especially filet mignon or chateabriand.

The main difference between the two is that Béarnaise uses white wine vinegar for acidity, while hollandaise is usually made with lemon juice. Both sauces are instantly recognizable for their pale yellow color and smooth, creamy consistency. But each one is typically used to flavor different dishes and ingredients.

There are a lot of scrumptious alternatives to hollandaise sauce. Béarnaise Sauce and Mock Hollandaise Sauce are great substitutes.

Béarnaise sauce was introduced later, and is a derivative of hollandaise. This sauce differs from hollandaise in the ingredients used, as well as the food it's served with. Béarnaise gets its acidity from white wine vinegar, rather than the lemon juice used in hollandaise sauce.