Roux is easier to cook with than it looks. Here's how to choose, use, and store it, what to substitute, and 11 recipes to get you started.

What is roux?

Roux is the cooked paste of flour and fat that thickens most classic sauces and stews. You melt the fat, stir in an equal weight of flour, and cook the two together until the raw starch loses its pasty taste.

From there it becomes the body of gravy, gumbo, mac and cheese, and countless slow braises.

The ratio is the part worth memorizing. Equal parts flour and fat by weight is the reliable starting point, which in practice is close to equal volumes of all-purpose flour and butter.

Color is what makes roux interesting. The longer you cook it, the darker and nuttier it gets, and the less it thickens.

Where you stop decides both the flavor and the final texture of the dish.

Cooking With Roux

A roux passes through stages as it cooks. White roux is pulled after a couple of minutes and barely colored, used for béchamel and the Cream Sauce that starts a casserole. Blonde roux cooks a little further to pale gold for velouté and chicken gravy.

Brown and dark roux are a different animal. Cook the flour and fat to the color of peanut butter, then keep going to coffee for the deep, toasty backbone of Cajun cooking.

Queen Ida's Chicken & Sausage Gumbo and Chicken Etoufee both depend on a dark roux for their roasted flavor and color.

In between, roux quietly thickens braises and bisques. Burgundy Beef Stew, Shrimp Bisque, and Sunday's Beef Pie all use a roux stage to give the liquid enough body to coat a spoon.

Technique and Common Mistakes

The whole point of cooking the roux is to toast away the raw-flour taste, which otherwise leaves a chalky edge in the finished sauce. Even a white roux needs a minute or two of bubbling before any liquid goes in.

Adding liquid is where lumps happen. The trick is a temperature gap: whisk warm stock into a hot roux, or hot liquid into a cooled roux, never hot into hot.

Pour it in gradually while whisking, and the starch disperses into a smooth sauce instead of seizing into clumps.

The other classic mistake is scorching a dark roux. It demands constant stirring over medium heat, and once you see or smell burnt flecks, there is no saving it. Toss it and start over, because that bitterness will haunt the whole pot.

Substitutes

For a gluten-free or last-minute thickener, a cornstarch slurry is the usual swap. Whisk one tablespoon cornstarch with cold water and stir it into simmering liquid; it thickens fast but gives a glossier, more gel-like finish than roux's matte body.

A beurre manié, equal parts soft butter and flour kneaded raw, whisks into a finished sauce in pieces to thicken it at the end without cooking a separate roux. It is the fix when a stew comes out thin.

Arrowroot or a potato starch slurry also work, especially for clear sauces. None of them deliver the toasty flavor of a browned roux, so for gumbo there is really no substitute.

Making and Storing Roux

Roux is made to order in minutes, so most cooks build it fresh in the pan they are already using. Use a heavy-bottomed pan that spreads heat evenly, which matters most for the long cook of a dark roux.

You can make it ahead. A big batch of dark roux keeps in the fridge for several weeks in a sealed jar, with a film of fat on top sealing it, and you simply spoon out what a recipe needs.

It freezes well too. Spread cooled roux in an ice cube tray and freeze, then bag the cubes so a Tuesday gumbo does not start with 45 minutes of stirring. Reheat it gently before whisking in liquid.

Quick facts

In Chinese

糊

British (UK) term

Roux

en français

roux

en español

roux

Recipes using roux

There are 11 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 11 recipes