Skip to main content
Sauce

Bearnaise Sauce

A sauce made from egg yolks, oil, vinegar, and seasonings, cooked over a double boiler.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tarragon and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,547 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bearnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a double boiler, beat the egg yolks.

  2. Add the salad oil and hot water, and cook until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in salt, paprika or cayenne, and tarragon vinegar.

Butter variation

  1. For a butter version, use 3 tablespoons of creamed butter instead of oil and omit the hot water.

  2. When thick, remove from heat and add 2 more tablespoons of creamed butter along with the seasonings.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + tarragontop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,789 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and vinegar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken and emulsify the sauce, giving it a rich, smooth body as they cook.
Salad oil
Adds fat that emulsifies with the yolks, creating a silky texture.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich yolk and fat flavor.

The step that matters

Cook until thickened. Egg yolks set over gentle heat; if the heat is too high they scramble and curdle, and the sauce cannot emulsify smoothly. Gentle, steady heat keeps the sauce creamy.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipesDutch SauceDutch Sauce74 recipes