Traditional White Sauce

White sauce is a basic for many sauces and soups. When I first started making white sauce,. as a teenager, the book I used for the recipe is the Better Homes and Gardens (the one with the red and white checked cover that many of us grew up with). Now I just know the recipe:

1) Decide how many cups of white sauce you need.
2) For each cup of white sauce needed, use 1T butter and 1T flour. Melt the butter then add the flour and stir together and cook over medium-low heat for 1-2 minutes until it is starting to turn golden brown. Careful not to burn it or your whole sauce will taste burned! Keep stirring it the whole time.
3) Then add one cup of milk for each tablespoon of flour and butter you used. (Use whole milk or cream for a nice creamy sauce, or use whatever milk you have--even reconstituted powdered milk works well but takes a little longer to thicken) Keep cooking and stirring over medium-low heat. (using a wire whisk helps the flour and milk combine easier without lumps). Keep stirring often as you cook or the milk will burn. If you want it to thicken faster you can turn the heat up a little but be careful to keep stirring it until it is the thickness you want.

Tips: After a few minutes if it is not as thick as you want you can mix a little cornstarch into some COLD milk or water and add it in. If it is too thick simply add some more milk.

For ALFREDO SAUCE, add about 1/4 Cup parmesan cheese per cup of white sauce at the end of cooking.
For CHEESE SAUCEadd desired amount of shredded cheddar cheese or cheese whiz or velveeta at the end of cooking and cook and stir until melted.
For use as a CREAM SOUP BASE (instead of using canned cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup) add in 1 teaspoon of chicken, beef or vegetable bouillon per cup of white sauce.