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Cheese Sauce

A simple sauce made by thickening milk with flour, then adding cheese and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,426 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, thicken the milk with the flour over medium heat.

  2. Just before serving, add the grated cheese and stir until melted.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve over creamed eggs, toast, hard-boiled eggs, or cooked vegetables like cabbage or cauliflower.

  2. You can also add diced, cooked potatoes to the sauce and reheat.

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. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a smooth sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the sauce body.
Cheese
Adds rich flavor and fat, and melts smoothly into the sauce when added off the heat.

The step that matters

Adding the cheese. Cheese added over high heat or left to boil can turn grainy or oily because its proteins tighten and fat separates. Adding it just before serving and stirring over low heat lets it melt evenly into the sauce.

“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.

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