Techniques
How to Emulsify Anything
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Prep
5 min
Total
5 min
Serves
A technique, not a batch: scales from one salad to a pot of sauce
Emulsifying sounds like chef school, but it is the easiest trick in cooking: getting fat and liquid to hold together so a sauce turns glossy instead of greasy. If you have ever shaken a jar of salad dressing, you have already done it.
Ingredients
- A fat: butter, olive oil, cheese, egg yolk, or pan drippings
- A liquid: water, milk, stock, vinegar, or pasta water
- A helper that holds them together: mustard, flour, cornstarch, honey, or egg yolk
- A whisk, a fork, or a jar with a tight lid
Instructions
- 1Put the liquid and the helper in the pan, bowl, or jar first.
- 2Add the fat a little at a time: a cube of butter, a thin stream of oil, a handful of cheese.
- 3Keep everything moving the whole time. Whisk, stir, or shake; motion is what blends the two.
- 4Keep the heat low, or off. A hard boil is what breaks an emulsion.
- 5If it ever looks greasy or split, pull it off the heat and whisk in a spoonful of cold water. It almost always comes right back.
Cook's Note
Temperature is the main thing that goes wrong. Add fat slowly, stay off high heat, and never let a finished emulsion boil.
How to Use This
This one move shows up everywhere: salad dressing, gravy, pan sauces, mac and cheese, mayonnaise, even swirling butter into soup at the end. Once you see the pattern (liquid plus helper, then fat, low heat, keep it moving), you can rescue or invent almost any sauce.
Why This Method Works
Fat and liquid naturally want to separate. The helper coats the fat in tiny droplets so they stay suspended in the liquid instead of pooling on top. That is the whole secret, and it is why one spoonful of mustard can hold a cup of vinaigrette together.
Make It Yours
- Vinaigrette: 1 tbsp mustard, 2 tbsp vinegar, then whisk in 6 tbsp olive oil
- Pan sauce: a splash of stock in the hot pan after searing, then swirl in cold butter one cube at a time
- Cheese sauce: see the Mac and Cheese Sauce recipe for the full version
- Creamy pasta without cream: toss hot pasta with butter, grated cheese, and a few spoonfuls of starchy pasta water
Keep Cooking
