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Watch this short video of me making parsley sauce in my kitchen. Join my YouTube Channel - I upload videos on all things herbal. Click on the photo to open the video in a new window.
Making parsley sauce is straightforward - you start with a basic white sauce - sometimes referred to as 'béchamel' sauce.
You can use fresh parsley, frozen or dried. Four tablespoons fresh chopped parsley, 1 tablespoon of dried or 2 tablespoons of frozen.
White sauce is the basis of many different sauces, once you've mastered it, you have multiple choices.
You can add cheese, onion, mushroom or shrimp to the white sauce base. I suggest you lightly saute the onion or mushroom before you add it. The cheese will melt into the sauce as you stir and shrimp will heat through.
I love parsley sauce with baked ham, new potatoes, peas and broad beans and it's the basis of many different fish pies.
If you cut the quantity of milk, to make a thicker sauce, this will fill vol au vent cases - perfect for buffet parties.
You can try a sample lesson to help you decide if the Herbal Academy of New England is the right choice for you - click the link below.
Preview Lesson from the Introductory Herbal Course Parsley Sauce Recipe
1. Melt the butter in a heavy pan.
2. Remove from the heat and stir in the flour – get all the lumps out by pressing with a wooden spoon.
3. Return to the heat source and cook over a low heat, stirring constantly for about 2 minutes.
4. Remove the pan from the heat and gradually add the milk. Pour a little at a time and whisk with a balloon whisk or stir with the spoon so that the mixture gradually gets runnier. Keep whisking so that all the lumps disappear in between milk additions.
5. Season with a few twists of pepper - you can add salt at this stage too, but I frequently leave that until I've cooked the sauce and tasted it - also, it depends what you're serving it with as say salty fish, might not need much salt adding to the sauce.
6.Return the pan to the heat and stir constantly whilst the sauce thickens. Cook for about 10 minutes and keep stirring from time to time - just let it cook gently, but make sure it doesn't stick.
7. Add the parsley after about 8 minutes, stirring well to mix through.
It's not hard and a lot of people make a 'big thing' out of it. The secrets are to make sure you get the lumps out of the initial butter and flour mix, cook it for a couple of minutes and use a balloon whisk to incorporate the milk thoroughly into the butter and flour. Add the milk gradually and whisk it properly and the lumps will disappear - add a bit more, whisk, add a bit more whisk and so on. Be patient and you'll be rewarded with a sauce made from proper natural ingredients rather than a hodge podge of stuff that you won't find on your kitchen shelves.
If you make sure you have no lumps at each stage, then you will have a perfect parsley sauce.
Leave out the parsley and melt 6 oz (150g) grated hard cheese and pour over cooked cauliflower for cauliflower cheese, add a large chopped and softened onion to the cooked sauce - the limit is your imagination.
Variations:
Cheese sauce - leave out the parsley and melt around 6oz/150g/1-2 cups of grated hard cheese. A strong cheddar is best and maybe a sprinkle of parmesan, just a small spoonful to add some 'oomph'. You can also add a teaspoon of English Mustard, either powder or made mustard for a bit of extra depth. Go easy on the salt at the preparation stage as cheese can be salty and it might be overpowering.
Onion sauce - chop and saute one large yellow or white onion in some oil or butter. Add to the sauce instead of the parsley at step 7.
Mushroom sauce - chop and saute a few mushrooms in oil or butter - a handful I would say, so maybe 4oz, 100g or half a cup. Add at step 7 instead of the parsley.
Parsley sauce is a classic to serve with fish - normally white fish, wet or smoked. Smoked cod or haddock is very tasty. Use this sauce to make a fish pie - you can buy special fish mixes at the shops, but a standard mix is plain cod, smoked haddock, plain salmon and shrimp.
It is also very good with ham or gammon.
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By Liz Alderson
Parsley sauce is so good with fish or ham and vegetables.
Prep Time: 1 minutes
Cook time: 6 minutes
Yield: 4
Main Ingredient: parsley, milk
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