Smooth and Creamy Hollandaise Sauce
This is an easy hollandaise sauce that’s absolutely perfect over eggs benedict as well as your favorite poached fish. I also love this sauce drizzled over just about any roasted or grilled vegetables. It definitely kicks the veggies up a notch! Here’s my quick and easy recipe for a rich, buttery, lemony, and oh so delicious hollandaise sauce. It always seems decadent, but it’s so simple to make and it’s a great addition to otherwise bland dishes.
What You’ll Need for Perfect Hollandaise Sauce
- eggs
- lemon juice, freshly squeezed if possible
- unsalted butter
- white pepper
- cayenne pepper
- salt
- paprika
- fresh chives for garnish, optional
What To Do If Your Hollandaise Sauce Breaks
First of all, no matter how careful you are, accept the fact that this is going to eventually happen to you. It has nothing to do with your Hollandaise recipe, it just happens. The important thing to keep in mind is that all is not lost – Do Not Throw it Away! Your broken Hollandaise Sauce can be fixed.
Here is what a broken Hollandaise Sauce looks like:
If you look close, you can see that the sauce has separated.
Hollandaise sauce is an emulsion, this means that when the butter is slowly whisked into the egg yolks, the lecithin in the yolks will help the mixture to emulsify or come together. As you can see in the sauce above, the mixture is not joined into a smooth and creamy sauce, but rather, it looks lumpy or curdled.
This sauce broke because I was busy taking pictures and asked my son to slowly drizzle the butter into the yolks. Well, my definition of drizzle and his, obviously, are not the same, and the result was a broken sauce. No problem. This is actually a good thing, I guess, because it gives me an opportunity to show you how to fix a broken sauce.
Take a stainless steel bowl and run it under hot water to warm it. Dry thoroughly. Add a tablespoon of boiling water to the bowl and whisk in a very small amount of the broken sauce. Once that is combined, add a bit more of the broken sauce and again whisk until combined. Working slowly you will bring your sauce back together and the hollandaise will be smooth and creamy. Adjust the thickness of your sauce by adding a few more drops of boiling water if necessary.
Here’s a great video by Chef John demonstrating how to save your broken sauce.
Ingredients
- 4 egg yolks
- 1 Tbsp. lemon juice, freshly squeezed
- 1/2 cup butter, unsalted, melted
- pinch white pepper
- pinch cayenne
- pinch salt
- dash paprika, for garnish
- chives, fresh, snipped, for garnish
Directions
- Add the egg yolks and 1 Tbsp of lemon juice to the top of a double boiler; whisk vigorously until they become thick and nearly double in volume.
- Bring water to a simmer in the bottom half of the double boiler. Place the top pan, containing the egg yolks and lemon, back on the double boiler. Be sure the water is barely simmering and doesn’t touch the bottom of the pan.
- Continue to rapidly whisk the egg yolk mixture, being careful that the eggs do not get too hot. You do not want to scramble the eggs, just heat them gently.
- Slowly DRIZZLE the melted butter into the egg mixture, whisking continuously. Continue heating and whisking until the sauce doubles in volume and becomes thick.
- Remove from heat. Gently whisk in a pinch of white pepper, a pinch of cayenne, and a pinch of salt.
- Cover; keep warm until ready to serve.
Notes
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