What Is Hollandaise sauce and How Can I Use It?

If hollandaise sauce has turned up in a recipe or caught your eye at the store, here's what you need to use it with confidence and how to choose it, cook it, store it, what to substitute, and 14 recipes to try it in.

Key Points

Warm emulsified sauce of egg yolks and butter, brightened with lemon, a French mother sauce.
Whisking butter into warm yolks suspends fat droplets so the sauce stays smooth.
Keep it under about 160°F (71°C); hotter and the yolks scramble grainy.
Rebuild a broken sauce by whisking it slowly into warm water or a fresh yolk.
Uses barely cooked yolks; use pasteurized eggs if pregnant or immune-compromised.

What is hollandaise sauce?

Hollandaise is a warm emulsified sauce of egg yolks and melted butter, loosened with lemon juice and a little salt. It is one of the French mother sauces.

It tastes rich and buttery with a bright lemon edge, and its texture sits somewhere between a thick custard and a pourable cream.

The trick is the emulsion. Whisking warm yolks while you stream in butter suspends millions of tiny fat droplets in the yolk's water, so the sauce stays smooth and thick instead of separating into a greasy puddle.

It is the sauce on eggs Benedict, and it is just as at home draped over asparagus or a piece of poached fish. Its derivatives, like bearnaise with tarragon and shallot, build on the same yolk-and-butter base.

Making and Using It

The two common methods are the double boiler and the blender. Over a pot of barely simmering water, whisk the yolks with a splash of lemon or water until they thicken, then add warm melted butter a little at a time, whisking constantly.

The blender version simply pours hot butter into whirling yolks and lets the machine do the emulsifying.

Keep the heat gentle, under about 160°F (71°C). Much past that the yolks scramble and the sauce turns grainy, so pull it off the heat the moment it thickens.

Serve hollandaise as soon as you can. It is the finishing sauce spooned over Scrambled Eggs Benedict and Eggs Hussarde, and it also turns plainer dishes special, napped over a fillet in Lemon-Stuffed Trout or alongside seafood in Crayfish Tails a la Carlton.

A little goes a long way. This is a rich sauce, so a few spoonfuls per plate is plenty; drowning the food buries whatever it is dressing.

Holding It and Fixing a Break

Hollandaise wants to be served warm rather than hot, and it does not reheat well. Hold it up to an hour in a bowl set over warm (not simmering) water, or in a thermos rinsed with hot water, whisking now and then so a skin does not form.

If the sauce breaks and turns oily and curdled, the butter usually went in too fast or the sauce got too hot.

To fix it, put a teaspoon of warm water in a clean bowl (a fresh yolk for a bad break) and slowly whisk the broken sauce into it, rebuilding the emulsion drop by drop.

One safety note: classic hollandaise uses barely cooked yolks, so anyone pregnant, elderly, or immune-compromised should use pasteurized eggs. Holding it warm rather than hot also keeps it out of the range where bacteria multiply.

Substitutes

For eggs Benedict in a hurry, a quick mock hollandaise made from a thick bechamel or a cup of mayonnaise warmed with lemon and a little mustard gets you a creamy yellow sauce without the emulsion risk. It is not the real thing, but it is forgiving.

Beurre blanc, a butter sauce emulsified with reduced wine and shallot instead of yolk, gives a similar luxurious drape over fish and vegetables. Browned butter with lemon, the classic over fish, is simpler and nuttier.

For the eggs-and-asparagus pairing specifically, a soft poached or fried egg works as a stand-in: break the yolk and it becomes its own loose, golden sauce.

Buying and Storing

Hollandaise is a made-to-order sauce, so the main thing to buy is very fresh eggs and good unsalted butter. The butter is most of the flavor, so it is worth using a quality one.

Powdered and jarred hollandaise mixes exist and are convenient, though they trade depth for shelf stability.

Make it fresh and use it the same hour. Because of the raw yolks and the warm holding temperature, leftover hollandaise should not sit out, and it does not keep well in the fridge: chilling sets the butter and reheating breaks the emulsion or scrambles the yolks.

If you must store it, refrigerate covered for up to a day and gently rewarm a spoonful at a time over a water bath, whisking, accepting that the texture will not be as good as fresh.