How to Make Cheese Sauce

Cheese sauce is an integral part of many crowd-pleasing dishes. Offering a smooth creamy texture, it can be incorporated into many recipes or smothered over meat, fish, vegetables, potatoes and pasta. Here’s some tips on how to make the best cheese sauce you’ll ever taste.

The colder the cheese is, the easier it will be to cut. In order to ensure quick and smooth melting the cheese should be grated, crumbled or finely diced. Allow the cheese to come to room temperature before adding it to the hot mixture.

When making cheese sauce or adding it to soups, be sure to add the cheese last; you want the cheese to melt but not burn. Often you can remove the pan from the heat when adding the cheese, as the residual heat will melt it sufficiently. Over-heating can squeeze the fat out of the cheese and make the sauce greasy.

To achieve a silky smooth texture in cheese sauces try adding some cream cheese a few minutes before serving. Reduced-fat cheeses take longer and are tougher to melt than regular cheese. Grate reduced-fat cheese very finely and melt it over very low heat, constantly stirring. Goat’s cheese doesn’t release fat when heated which means it stays solid. Other cheeses, such as brie, turn to liquid very quickly.

For fondues, starch (eg. flour, corn flour or potato flour) keeps the cheese from curdling. It should be added to the mixture before the cheese, cooking for a few minutes in order to remove the starchy taste.

Most fondues have a base of white wine. This is because the acidity in ingredients such as wine or lemon juice, help prevent the cheese from becoming clumpy. Try sprinkling some lemon juice over the shredded cheese before heating it up. To see these tips in action, try out one of our recipes. Our Baked Fish with a Creamy Cheese Sauce Recipe is a great way of using our super tasty cheese sauce to change-up a regular fish dish.

Baked Fish with a Creamy Cheese Sauce ​

Knorr Classic White Sauce makes a delicious base on which the great flavours of cheese, curry powder and spring onions are maximised. This indulgent sauce is then poured over fresh, seasoned fish fillets and rice, before being sprinkled with paprika and baked for 30 minutes.