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Creamy Hollandaise Sauce

"This creamy, slightly tart sauce is made from an emulsion of egg yolks, butter, and lemon juice cooked over gentle heat. The secret is to keep the heat LOW so that the egg yolks don't curdle, and to whisk constantly."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 15,317 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

4 servings
Prep5 min
Cook10 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, soy, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Whisk the egg yolks, 1 tablespoon water and the lemon juice together in a stainless steel or heatproof bowl until smooth.

  2. Set the bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water, making sure the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water.

  3. Whisk constantly over gentle heat for about 5 minutes until the yolks thicken and reach 160°F (71°C). Lift the bowl off the heat if the yolks start to scramble.

  4. Remove the bowl from the heat. Drizzle in the melted butter very slowly while whisking constantly until the sauce is thick and smooth.

  5. Whisk in the salt, ground white pepper and Worcestershire sauce until evenly blended.

  6. Serve the hollandaise warm right away, as it will thicken further and can separate if held too long.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Sauce + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together15,317 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + white peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,657 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Egg + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together118,511 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Lemon + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,197 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Egg + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,327 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sauce and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 15,317 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, lemon, sauce, butter):

  1. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  2. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  3. Capersbetter flavor fit
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon, sauce, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).