Beurre blanc is a classic French butter sauce. It is perfect with many types of fish, steamed, fried or baked. It is a flexible base and can be adapted with many other flavours to enhance your choice of fish or cooking mood. Spicy chilli flavours, citrus,  oriental ginger or tangy mustard all fit in well. Master the quite simple cooking process and this will become a go to option for your fish cookery.

What is Beurre Blanc?

The sauce origins are said to be from Britany in France. The name just means “white butter”. In simple terms beurre blanc is a weak emulsion of reduced white wine and vinegar with butter. It has all the flavours of butter but avoids being too heavy or greasy. Whilst being mainly melted butter it looks more like a hollandaise when on the plate.

This culinary magic is based on an emulsion.  Emulsify means that two things that usually separate (such as oil and water) are able to mix together without separating. In this case, melted butter mixes with vinegar/wine to create a sauce, by applying gentle heat and action from the chef with a whisk. (Technically butter is already an emulsion of oil and water along with some milk solids that remains static when chilled).

Ingredients For Classic Beurre Blanc Sauce

3 medium shallots
225g unsalted butter (This is the main ingredient so use the best unsalted butter you can)
60ml muscadet or similar dry white wine
60ml white wine vinegar
Salt

How to make A Beurre Blanc Sauce

Begin with finely slicing the shallots place into (a heavy bottom helps distribute the heat across the base) saucepan. Add the vinagar and white wine, Mucadet is traditional but the most important factor, dry not sweet.

Bring to the boil and then turn down to a gentle simmer. Stir occasionally as the liquids reduce and the flavours combine. Remove from the heat when the liquid is almost gone and reduced to a syrup like consistency. Take care not to burn the shallots once softened.

Allow the pan to cool then start adding the butter over a gentle heat. The butter should be cold and in small chunks. Adding a single lump at a time whisk in each one until it has fully melted before the next is introduced. Once the last chunk has melted remove from the heat and keep whisking for another 10-15 seconds.

If want to have a smooth sauce, pass the sauce through a fine sieve.

Your sauce is now done and you can serve right away!

NB As with many other warm emulsified sauces, Beurre Blanc’s weakness is too much heat. Never let the sauce come to a boil and always whisk in very cold butter

Adding Other Flavours To A Beurre Blanc

The recipe above is for the classic basic sauce which has the rich butter flavours balanced with acidity from the wine, vinegar and some depth from the shallot sweetness. However once you have the basic technique you can adapt to add in different flavours.

The most simple way is to add directly to the finished sauce. Finely chopped chives make a good looking and tasty extra tweak as will other green fresh herbs such as tarragon. Both go very well with fish. Mustard or paprika can also work well.

For additional citrus flavour add lemon juice or other fruits such as yuzu or orange to the initial reduction.

Fixing A Split Beurre Blanc

Yes, it can happen. The butter melts and separates from the rest of the sauce. Here are a few tips on how to bring back a split sauce:

  • If your beurre blanc starts splitting, remove from heat, adding a little cold butter and whisking it in can restore the balance.
  • Alternatively try whisking in some cold cream from the fridge. Not too much otherwise it will change the sauce.
  • Add a couple of small ice cubes while whisking, which reduces the temperature and adds water to the emulsion

Its all about temperature. Keep the pan at a low heat and make sure the butter cubes are cold to start with and you can prevent the split

You can find some great fish recipes and cooking tips on our blog where beurre blanc would make a great accompianment >>