Basic Beurre Blanc Sauce: Perfect for Fish and Seafood (2024)

Prep: 8 mins

Cook: 67 mins

Total: 75 mins

Servings: 9 servings

Yield: 2 1/4 cups

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Beurre blanc is a simple butter-based emulsified sauce that's great with fish or seafood. When compared to mother sauces such as velouté, which has been around since at least the 1600s, beurre blanc is a relative newcomer (and not a culinary mother sauce). It originated in the 1890s in Nantes, a city in western France close to the Atlantic coast and was originally called beurre Nantes.

According to the legend, a chef named Clémence Lefeuvre (or in some tellings, her assistant) was making béarnaise sauce but forgot to add the egg yolks. Historical anecdotes aside, sometimes folks confuse these two sauces. Béarnaise uses liquidclarified butter, and it is important to keep it warm. With beurre blanc, on the other hand, you use whole butter, and it's important tokeep it as cold as possible.

Beurre blanc tastes velvety and rich thanks to butter, but it's also slightly sweet and tangy as well. It pairs beautifully with fish and seafood. Good wines for the reduction include Chablis, sauvignon blanc or chardonnay, but any drinkable dry white will do.

Ingredients

1 pound cold unsalted butter
1 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon finely chopped shallot
Kosher salt, to taste
See Also
An Introduction to the 5 French Mother Sauces

Steps to Make It

Gather the ingredients.
Cut the butter into medium (1/2-inch) cubes and return them to the refrigerator to keep them cold.
Heat the wine, vinegar, and shallot in a saucepan over high heat until the liquid boils. Continue boiling until the liquid has reduced down to about 2 tablespoons, about 30 to 40 minutes.
Reduce the heat to low, take the cubes of butter out of the fridge and start rapidly whisking them in, 1 or 2 at a time, to the reduction. As the butter melts and incorporates, add more and keep whisking. Continue until you only have 2 to 3 cubes remaining. This process should take about 25 to 30 minutes.
Remove from the heat while whisking in the last few cubes, and whisk for a moment or two more. The finished sauce should be thick and smooth.
Season to taste with kosher salt.
Traditionally, the chopped shallot would be strained out before serving but doing so is optional. Serve right away. Enjoy.

Recipe Variations

For a deliciously luxurious beurre blanc, try making it with leftover Champagne.
You can also make a variation called beurre rouge ("red butter"), by substituting red wine and red wine vinegar in the reduction.

Why Did My Beurre Blanc Spilt?

If you make this sauce correctly, it will be thick, creamy, and velvety. If it looks like melted butter, the emulsion has broken. This can happen for several reasons. Either the butter was not cold enough, you added the cubes too quickly, you didn't whisk hard enough, or possibly all three. To fix a broken sauce, simply take it off the heat and whisk in a few chips of ice until the emulsion comes back together.

Can I Make Beurre Blanc Ahead of Time?

Beurre blanc is really meant to be made and used immediately, but you can make it ahead, with a few caveats.

To make an hour or so before serving: This requires you to keep the sauce warm, which can be a little tricky because too much heat will break it. Keep it over a very low flame and a close eye on it while you are making the rest of the meal, and then whisk in a little stock or cream before serving. Or, if your kitchen is warm enough and you have other burners going, you can simply turn off the burner under your sauce and the ambient heat should be enough to keep it intact, provided you whisk it now and then. If not, add a little cold butter and whisk it in.

To make a day ahead (or for leftover sauce): If you're ok with the fact that the sauce won't really be the same, refrigerate the sauce in a sealed container. It's a warm emulsion and if you reheat it, it will break. Instead, simply scoop out a little bit of cold beurre blanc and put it on hot vegetables or fish. It will still be delicious but more like a compound butter. (Note: this works if you want to freeze leftover beurre blanc, too. Cut off a piece as needed and use it on hot foods.)

French Sauces
Side Dishes
European Food
French Food

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
386	Calories
41g	Fat
1g	Carbs
0g	Protein

Show Full Nutrition Label

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 9
Amount per serving
Calories	386
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 41g	52%
Saturated Fat 25g	127%
Cholesterol 108mg	36%
Sodium 42mg	2%
Total Carbohydrate 1g	0%
Dietary Fiber 0g	0%
Total Sugars 0g
Protein 0g
Vitamin C 0mg	0%
Calcium 16mg	1%
Iron 0mg	1%
Potassium 35mg	1%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

Recipe Tags:

sauce
beurre blanc
dinner
french

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Basic Beurre Blanc Sauce: Perfect for Fish and Seafood (2024)

Recipe Variations

Why Did My Beurre Blanc Spilt?

Can I Make Beurre Blanc Ahead of Time?

References