The Ingredient Substitution You Can Make For Flour When Making Roux - Tasting Table (2024)

FAQs

The Ingredient Substitution You Can Make For Flour When Making Roux - Tasting Table? ›

At The Root Of Roux

Roux is commonly made with flour, but you can also sub in cornstarch or arrowroot powder. Mix the cornstarch or arrowroot powder with water to form a slurry before adding it to the pan and cooking it with the fat.

If you're out of both flour AND cornstarch — don't sweat it. You can use any of the following slurry-style replacements: potato starch, arrowroot powder, or tapioca starch to complete the thickening task. So, while you might be "out of stock," you won't roux the day.

The method to rid the roux of the flour flavor is to cook the roux before adding any liquid. Typically a roux is equal amounts of fat and flour sautéed until the taste of the flour is removed. The amount of cooking will determine the flavor of the roux.

Dr Veronica Giacintucci, Teaching Fellow in Food Science, shares her top 4 alternatives using ingredients found in your cupboards. Rice, quinoa, almond and pulse flours are great alternatives when you're running low on your usual supplies.

Coconut Flour – Coconut flour absorbs a lot of moisture during baking, so if you use it, be sure to add two extra tablespoons of liquid for every two tablespoons of coconut flour. Oat Flour – If you've got oatmeal in the pantry, you can turn it into flour! Just pop it in the blender and pulse until powdery.

It's important to note that cornstarch has twice the thickening power of flour. If you need to substitute cornstarch to thicken liquid in a recipe that calls for ¼ cup (four tablespoons) flour, you only need two tablespoons cornstarch.

Easy-to-access alternatives are wheat flour, arrowroot flour, and rice flour. These are good alternatives to cornstarch because they are more nutritious and contain fewer carbohydrates and calories. Xanthan and guar gum are much stronger thickeners than cornstarch, but they can be harder to obtain and use.

To make your béchamel thicker without flour, reduce the heat to low and simmer the sauce while stirring. This allows evaporation to reduce and thicken the sauce, though it will take much longer.

What makes gravy taste like flour? ›

Your gravy might taste doughy or chalky if you didn't cook the flour enough when making your roux. You'll want to cook the flour for at least five minutes, until it smells nutty and begins to turn light brown. But if you don't notice until it's too late and you've already added your broth, bring the gravy to a simmer.

Egg yolks, arrowroot, tomato paste or butter can thicken sauce in place of flour or cornstarch.

If your gravy is on the skimpy side, you can thicken it quickly with flour or cornstarch. But don't add your thickener directly to the gravy, which will create lumps. Instead, try stirring in three or four tablespoons of flour or cornstarch into a small amount of cold water until you have a smooth paste.

Roux is typically made from equal parts of flour and fat by weight. The flour is added to the melted fat or oil on the stove top, blended until smooth, and cooked to the desired level of brownness. A roux can be white, blond (darker) or brown. Butter, bacon drippings or lard are commonly used fats.

Cornstarch should not be cooked into a roux. Using flour as a thickener will make the sauce opaque and cloudy while cornstarch leaves a shiny, more translucent finish. This is a desirable feature for fruit pie fillings and certain sauces, especially in Chinese stir-fries.

According to On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee, roux functions as a thickener due the starches in the flour swelling up and interfering with the flow of water.