Hi all

I was wondering if anyone could suggest a white sauce recipe for the lasagne i'm making later?

I normally use my mother-in-laws recipe but have mis-placed it and can't get hold of her.

Please no suggestions for the stuff which comes in a jar, it's very wrong!

Thanks in advance.

I like delia's all in one sauce for lasagne http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-co...ite-sauce.html

Thanks mollipops

I just do a basic bechamel. Equal amounts butter and flour, stir until it smells biscuity, slowly add whole milk until you get the consistency you want, salt & pepper, a scraping of nutmeg.
You can flavour the milk a bit with half an onion studded with cloves and chuck in a few bay leaves but I can't be arsed unless it's a special meal, and I don't think it makes that much of a difference especially with the stronger flavours of lasagne.

Thanks indianwells, that sounds similar to my mother-in-laws so think i'll go with that one.

Gino D'Acampo bechamel sauce - you'll need an amount like this if you're making a very large lasagne.

100g butter, 100g plain flour, 1 litre milk, ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste. Just melt the butter gently, stir in the flour and cook 1 minute. Slowly incorporate the milk, bring up to simmer, and whisk. Cook about 5 minutes, adding the nutmeg and seasoning to taste. That's your basic sauce, but you can add cheese to it if you want.

Mmmmmmm, this is making me very hungry!

I was going to suggest almost exactly this!

For the last one I made (for a not huge cauli cheese, ie enough for 2 people) I used 30g plain flour, 30g butter and a third or so over a pint of *cold* (Delia tip) milk.

I always seem to end up playing the milk by ear! But the equal quantities of flour and butter has never failed me, as long as I don't get distracted during the crucial "getting them biscuity" initial stirring when you're cooking out the flour and butter.

In went a generous tbsp of Dijon mustard and around 70g grated cheese once the sauce was thick.

I also threw in around 10 black peppercorns and then wished I'd just ground some in, as fishing them out of the thickened sauce was messy... Plus a bay leaf and two cloves as I had them sitting around and they did give a nice savouriness and 'warmth'.

One technique that works for me is that when starting mixing the milk in I whisk like a crazy dervish. Also, don't be deceived by the consistency in the first minute or two of mixing the milk in, as it will get thicker. Then when it's integrated, as indianwells says you can whisk in more milk if you think it needs it.

Hope it goes well!

butter and flour goes a long way. last time I made it I used a tsp of butter and probably double of flour and then added milk until I got the right consistensy and it still made about 3 times the amount I actually needed.

This is true. The cauli cheese I made was exceedingly sauce-y!

Thank you everyone, my lasagne is now ready for the oven and it has a very yummy white sauce (even if i do say so myself). I remembered whilst i was making it that my MIL puts a splash of worcester sauce in hers instead of nutmeg.

Going to reward myself with a glass of red wine now.

I was thinking about an easy white sauce recipe I saw and just remembered what it was from

Bastichio - Hairy Bikers

It uses corn flour and creme fraiche
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/mumsknowb...kb_ep6_ira.pdf