If you’ve ever combined melted butter and flour over heat, congratulations: You’ve made a roux. While the name may make it sound intimidating, making a roux (pronounced “roo”) is relatively simple—all you need is fat, flour, heat, and time. But let’s start with the basics:
What is a roux?
A staple of Cajun, Creole, and French cuisines, roux is a seasoning and thickening agent made by combining fat and flour (usually in equal parts) over heat and whisking to make a thick paste. Roux forms the base for three of the five French mother sauces (velouté, espagnole, and béchamel) and many signature dishes of the American South, like gumbo, mac and cheese, and sausage gravy. It’s also a critical component of Thanksgiving turkey gravy.
Unlike a cornstarch slurry, roux must be cooked before adding hot liquid (otherwise the dish may retain the taste of raw flour). The longer a roux cooks, the less potent its thickening power, but what develops is a flavorful base that adds nutty, rich dimension to countless stews and sauces. This is why you’ll see roux cooked to varying levels of doneness, including white, blond, medium brown, and dark brown.
White roux cooks for the shortest amount of time (2–5 minutes) and functions primarily as a thickener in dishes like macaroni and cheese and clam chowder. On the other end of the spectrum, dark brown roux cooks for 30–45 minutes and acts as an integral seasoning in dishes like gumbo and étoufée. Most roux recipes call for all-purpose flour, but you could use any type of wheat flour for a basic roux. Want to make it gluten-free? Our gluten-free gravy uses sweet rice flour in place of wheat flour.
The fat is similarly flexible: Use butter, clarified butter, ghee, oil, or animal fat (like chicken schmaltz, duck fat, or pork lard). How do you decide which type of fat to use? It depends what dish you’re making and how long you’ll cook the roux. Butter adds great flavor, but since it has a lower smoke point than other fat sources (like vegetable or canola oil), it’s more likely to burn when used in a darker roux. “In a dark roux,” says New Orleans–based chef Justin Devillier, “I’ll mix butter with a high-heat oil” to keep the fat from scorching. “It’s really about preference; I know cooks who use all butter to make dark roux and the result [can be very] good.”
Many chefs use rendered fat from the protein used in the dish as the base for a roux. For example, the roux in this Chicken and Sausage Gumbo recipe relies on fat rendered from both the chicken and sausage.
What color roux should you use for your dish? Use a light roux when you want to thicken sauces (like béchamel) without adding much flavor; opt for a dark roux when you want the finished dish to have nutty, caramelized undertones. In Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen, a resource on Cajun and Creole cuisine, Prudhomme writes that Cajun cooks traditionally use a light roux with dark meats (like beef, venison, or duck) and a dark roux with more delicate meats (pork, rabbit, veal, chicken, or seafood).
White roux: White roux is typically made with butter and cooked 2–5 minutes—just long enough to get rid of the raw flour taste. It should have an off-white to light tan color and the texture of wet sand. White roux is used to thicken sauces like béchamel without adding much flavor. Use it in lasagna, macaroni and cheese, or sausage gravy.
Blond roux: Blond roux (or peanut butter roux) cooks until it starts to smell toasty and turns the color of…well, peanut butter (about 5–10 minutes). Devillier uses blond roux in bisque and other creamy soups.
Medium brown roux: It takes 15–30 minutes to develop the nutty taste and aroma of a medium brown roux. Once it reaches a coppery brown hue, sometimes compared to melted milk chocolate, it’s ready. Devillier uses it in étouffée, while New Orleans chef Susan Spicer likes this stage of roux for seafood gumbo.
Dark brown roux: Dark brown roux looks like dark melted chocolate and has a rich, nutty flavor. Devillier uses dark roux more than any other shade, especially in gumbos and fricassees. Spicer often uses dark roux when making gumbo with duck, sausage, or rabbit.
How to make a roux:
Follow this simple step-by-step guide to make a roux for cheese sauce, gumbo, or anything else you’re cooking.
Warm your fat of choice in a heavy Dutch oven or cast-iron skillet. If you’re using a solid fat, such as butter or cooled lard, make sure it’s completely melted before continuing; if you’re using a fat that’s liquid at room temperature, forge ahead.
For a gravy that serves eight people, start with ½ cup fat. If you’re using rendered fat—like for sausage gravy—brown the meat, then measure the fat and supplement with any other type of fat you have on hand if you need more (or pour off the excess and reserve it for another use if you have too much). Our turkey gravy recipe relies on the fat from turkey drippings, with butter added to reach ½ cup total.
Add an equal portion of all-purpose flour to the skillet. For accuracy you can measure this by weight, but measuring by volume is fine for small amounts. So for ½ cup fat, add ½ cup flour. Whisk the flour into the fat until you have a smooth, thick paste. If it’s too thick to whisk, add a little more fat. If it seems runny, add more flour.
The key to a good roux is to watch it carefully and whisk it almost constantly (if black specks appear, your roux has burned and you should start over). The cooking time will vary based on your desired color—a white roux takes as little as 2–5 minutes, whereas a dark roux requires 30–45 minutes. Keep whisking until the roux reaches the desired color. For gravy, cook until you achieve a blond roux (about 5 minutes).
Once the roux has achieved the desired thickness and color, slowly adding liquid transforms it into a true sauce. Stream milk into a white roux to make béchamel, a classic French white sauce used in many variations of macaroni and cheese and lasagna. Adding stock instead makes it a velouté, ideal for thickening stews, like gumbo. Or combine with pan drippings to make a quick gravy—or a splash of wine to start a pan sauce. Whichever liquid you choose, add it in a stream, whisking constantly to prevent lumps, then bring to a boil, whisking. Simmer until it reaches your desired consistency.
Developing dark roux’s deep, nutty flavors takes time. Some popular (albeit questionable) shortcuts may seem enticing: “A lot of people make roux in the oven or toast the flour first,” says Devillier, but he doesn’t recommend this approach. “Cook it the old-fashioned way,” he says: “in a pot, start to finish, for the most even results.”
What about increasing the heat? That’s the shortcut we take in this shrimp-and-andouille gumbo recipe. Cooking the roux over very high heat—near smoking—expedites the browning, resulting in a dark roux in about 5 minutes. For this approach, you’ll want to choose a fat with a higher smoke point, like vegetable oil, and closely monitor the roux, whisking constantly to ensure it doesn’t burn.
However, if it’s your first time making roux, we highly recommend going slow. Start on medium heat and let the roux caramelize gradually, stirring with a wooden spoon every few minutes. This minimizes the chances of your roux burning—and once a roux burns, there’s no way to save it.
Making roux takes time and patience, two things we don’t always have. That’s why we recommend making a big batch of roux—particularly dark roux, which requires the most time and effort for the home cook—and freezing individual servings for later.
To make roux ahead of time, cook a large batch and, once the roux reaches the desired color, portion it into individual servings—we recommend using a large ice cube tray. Freeze for up to 6 months, then pop a cube into a hot pan (no need to thaw) for an instant roux.
Additional reporting contributed by Rhoda Boone.
