Vegan white sauce, also known as bechamel sauce. Basic 3 ingredient recipe that you can expand on with different flavorings. Creamy and delicious.
So your basic vegan white sauce has a lot of uses. It’s the basic recipe that with a few additions can turn into a vegan cheese sauce.
Also called a bechamel sauce, this is the white sauce you can use in lasagnas and other dishes that require a white sauce.
It’s usually made with butter, flour and dairy milk. Sometimes oil, flour and dairy milk.
Since this is the vegan version, of course the dairy milk is replaced with plant based milk. Too easy really!
In this case I used soy milk but any plant based milk of your choice will do the trick.
I tried a version using vegan butter and the butter flavor was pretty strong.
I wasn’t a huge fan but I liked it more than Jaye who wasn’t a fan. He was all like: ‘aarrgggg butter sauce, I just ate a heap of butter in a sauce!’
Well, needless to say, he didn’t! It was just a little butter in a lot of sauce, but whatevs.
So the next time I made it with olive oil and I thought it tasted heaps better, and Jaye agreed.
In fact this one was so delicious that we’ve made it a lot since then.
And I used it in a lasagna dish that came out beautifully.
It’s a creamy dreamy white sauce that is like a blank canvas. You can add any flavorings to it that you choose, like garlic or herbs or whatever you desire!
The basic recipe is just 3 ingredients, and after that it’s up to you how you flavor it.
We’ve just gone with some sea salt and black pepper, but fresh herbs would be great, dried herbs, garlic spice, chilli, mustard, whatever you’re in the mood for.
More Vegan Sauces
- Vegan Mushroom Sauce
- Cashew Cheese Sauce
- Tahini Sauce
- Vegan Peanut Sauce
- Vegan Peppercorn Sauce
- Vegan Tartar Sauce
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan White Sauce (Bechamel)
Ingredients
Basic White Sauce:
- 3 Tbsp Olive Oil
- 2 Tbsp All Purpose Flour
- 2 cups (480ml) Soy Milk (or other non-dairy milk)
Spices to taste:
Instructions
- Add the oil to a pot on the stove and heat it at medium to high heat.
- As the oil heats, add the flour and stir or whisk vigorously.
- Add the soy milk all at once and continue to stir and whisk (you can alternate between a wooden spoon and a whisk) and allow the sauce to gradually thicken.
- You will usually get to the right thickness after it has reached boiling point and boiled for a few minutes.
- When you’ve reached the desired thickness (keep in mind that the sauce will continue to thicken as it cools), remove from the heat and add any spices you choose, such as some salt and black pepper or garlic spice or whatever you choose.
Video
Notes
- If you double this recipe, then just a note that the way to double it is that the flour must always be one less than the oil. So doubling this recipe would mean you use 6 Tbsp of olive oil and 5 Tbsp of flour.
It made a nice thick sauce but because of the soy milk (I used original soy milk), the sauce just had a strange sweet flavour so I could not use this as the main sauce for my lasagna. I will try again with unsweetened soy milk, etc.
Let us know what you think of the sauce when you use unsweetened soy milk Pris!
My son is vegan and our family have converted all our Thanksgiving side dishes to vegan. After the first year, we discovered that soy milk of any kind adds a weird flavor to dishes like mashed potatoes. We found that one of the ingredients listed on any soy milk, even “unsweetened”, lists “organic natural flavors”. We both agree that it tastes like vanilla. We have switched to using oat milk which has a much more neutral flavor.
My son is vegan and our family have converted all our Thanksgiving side dishes to vegan. After the first year, we discovered that soy milk of any kind adds a weird flavor to dishes like mashed potatoes. We found that one of the ingredients listed on any soy milk, even “unsweetened”, lists “organic natural flavors”. We both agree that it tastes like vanilla. We have switched to using oat milk which has a much more neutral flavor.
Thank you for this recipe.I made it with Barista Oat Milk which is creamier and it was perfect. I used it on the vegan moussaka I made for a friend and it was devoured to the last bite by every one.
Awesome Zahra! Thanks so much for your great review!
I did with Oat milk and it didn’t thick it up. I guess it is a soy milk for this bechamel. :/
I already had a pretty good idea how to make a basic Vegan white sauce, but it’s been awhile so I appreciated having measurements to get it right. I also GREATLY appreciated the “1Tablespoon less” tip regarding the flour if doubling the recipe, which I did (double it).
I used this recipe as the basis for a Vegan Green Bean Casserole I made for a friend’s Easter dinner. I used Earth Balance Vegan margarine instead of oil, and soymilk for the liquid (2 cups sweetened, 2 cups unsweetened). I seasoned it with white pepper and Himalayan pink sea salt, then added 2 small cans finely diced mushroom stems and pieces. Doubling this Bechamel recipe gave me the approximate equivalent of 2 cans of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup.
Once I had the ‘soup’ made it was just a matter of following the recipe on the back of a French’s Fried Onions canister (larger size), including adding the black pepper. BUT I did not add any extra soymilk.
I used 4 cans of green beans, drained, and the entire canister of fried onions, divided. And a bit more salt.
One thing I did notice is that, while the white sauce turned out perfect in texture, after I baked it in the casserole it seemed to curdle a bit, which disappointed me. But the flavor of the casserole was spot on and did not taste ‘Vegan’ to me ( a non-Vegan).
And I guess my friend liked it, too, because she’s now asking for the casserole recipe, so I’m including this white sauce recipe with it. Thank you! 🙂
Thanks for you great review LN! 🙂
Tried it with coconut milk and the result was a coconut soup – it never really came together until I simmered it for an hour (evaporating by half) and then helped it with a cornstarch slurry. Maybe soy just works better?
hello!
can we use other type of oil?
thank you
Hi Ana! You can try substituting with avocado oil/coconut oil or even vegan butter. All the best!
This was so easy and delicious! I added some melted vegan butter, sage, and garlic and put it over gnocchi. It was amazing! I will definitely be saving this recipe for the future.
Sounds delicious! Thanks so much for sharing and for your great review!
Fantastic! Simple and perfect! Works to perfection and can jazz it up if needed but love it as it is, vegan lasagna was amazing, my go to bechamel sauce from now on! Thank you 😊
So happy to hear you enjoy the recipe Kate!
So simple to make. I used it as a sauce for my vegan chicken pie with a shortcrust pastry base and a puff pastry top, which turned out to be pretty awesome. I do need to tweak the additional flavouring a little (I just added garlic salt) but this is a me problem, ain’t no reflection on the recipe.
Six stars out of five from me.
I am going to give the butter version a whirl though as I likes me a bitta butter so long as the bitta butter I bought ain’t bitter. 😊👍
Wow that’s sounds great Mark! Thanks so much for your awesome review! (high-five!) 🙂