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Hollandaise Sauce

If hollandaise sauce makes you nervous, fear no more! This easy hollandaise sauce recipe is basically foolproof.

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A bowl of homemade hollandaise sauce

No, Really. This Is an Easy Hollandaise Sauce Recipe! (Hint: It Involves a Blender)

You want to make some eggs benedict at home—but you think that hollandaise sauce is impossible to make yourself, right? Well, actually, with the right recipe, hollandaise can be a total breeze! Seriously. All that it is is a fat-and-water emulsion—the creamy result of forcing egg yolks and lemon juice to merge with butter. OK, but what makes emulsion successful, instead of sad and broken (as so often happens with homemade hollandaise sauce)? The key is breaking the fat molecules up as much as possible, while working very quickly so that the warm butter doesn’t cook and curdle the eggs. Enter the blender! Yes, a whisk is traditional, but a blender takes the risk of a broken or curdled hollandaise sauce basically off the table. Repeat! Blending the hollandaise instead of whisking it basically means that you cannot fail. Modern life—it has its perks! This sauce is so notoriously difficult to make completely by hand that even Julia Child suggests using a blender! If it’s good enough for Julia, it’s good enough for us.

Ingredients laid out for homemade hollandaise sauce: two sticks of butter, lemon juiced and egg yolks in a bowl

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What Is Hollandaise Sauce?

Though it likely originated in the 17th century, hollandaise sauce was crowned as one of the five "mother sauces" of French cuisine in the early 1900s by Escoffier, a French chef whose writings codified and unified French cuisine. A creamy emulsion of egg yolks, enriched with butter and flavored simply with a bit of lemon juice, hollandaise is a sunny, bright, rich sauce that you’ve probably eaten! If you’ve ever had eggs benedict, you’ve probably had hollandaise. But it’s delicious on many things—try this lightly tart, lusciously rich sauce on poached fish, blanched green veggies (it’s heavenly on asparagus), or homemade eggs florentine.

egg yolks and lemon juice in the base of a blender
egg yolks and lemon juice blended in a blender

The Best Hollandaise Sauce Ingredients are the Simplest

Some people add fresh herbs or other seasonings to their hollandaise, but we are hollandaise sauce purists. Get creative with how you serve it, sure, but some things are sacred and true French hollandaise sauce is one of them! Keep it super simple, and focus on nailing that perfect, softly yellow, creamy sauce. To make our classic hollandaise sauce recipe, you’ll just need:

  • Egg yolks

  • Butter

  • Fresh lemon juice

homemade hollandaise sauce in the base of a blender
homemade hollandaise sauce in a bowl

How to Make Hollandaise Sauce

Whether you’re making an Easter feast for a huge crowd, or just a special breakfast for two, homemade hollandaise sauce has a way of turning just about any meal or moment into an occasion. It’s just kind of special like that. And once you realize that you really can leave any memories of broken sauces and other various hollandaise-making frustrations well in the past with this easy recipe, you might just find yourself making it on the regular! Here’s how to make the very best hollandaise sauce recipe:

  1. Melt butter.

  2. Combine the room-temperature egg yolks and lemon juice in the blender and blend.

  3. As slowly and steadily as you can, with the blender running, pour the butter into the blender.

  4. Blend until your hollandaise sauce is pale yellow and slightly thick.

  5. You did! You made hollandaise sauce!

homemade hollandaise sauce in a bowl with a spoon

Tools You’ll Need

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homemade hollandaise sauce in a bowl with a spoon

Getting Saucy

Now that you can make hollandaise sauce from scratch, you can basically conquer the entire world, right?! Well, we sure think so. We hope you make something delicious with your homemade sauce, and when you do, we’d love to hear all about it! Share a photo and tag us on Instagram using @themodernproper and #themodernproper so that we can see your stuff! Happy eating!

Hollandaise Sauce

  • Serves: 12
  • Prep Time:  5 min
  • Calories: 154

Ingredients

  • 4 large egg yolks, room temp
  • 1 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 cup salted butter, hot melted

Method

  1. In a high speed blender, blend yolks and lemon juice on medium low speed until just combined.
  2. Transfer hot melted butter to a liquid measuring cup. With the blender running pour the butter very slowly in a steady stream into the egg mixture through the top. Blend until pale yellow and slightly thickened.
  3. Remove the sauce from the blender and use immediately or set aside in a bowl, covered with plastic wrap, pressing it down until it touches the sauce. When ready to serve, stir in 1 or 2 tablespoons of hot water and stir until desired consistency.

Notes:

  1. Sauce will thicken as it cools, if you’re wanting to reheat it DO NOT use the microwave. Either heat the sauce in a small saucepan set over low heat with 2 more tablespoons of melted butter, stirring constantly for 1-2 minutes OR add the sauce to a double boiler and allow the steam to reheat it while stirring constently. If the sauce gets too much heat you will cook the eggs and end up with an uneven consistency.
  2. If your sauce is too thin, it may be because you did not add the hot butter slowly enough.
  3. There are a lot of Hollandaise sauces out there with a lot of things added in. This no fuss sauce needs nothing. It’s perfect with just butter, egg yolks and lemon juice.

Nutrition Info

  • Per Serving
  • Amount
  • Calories154
  • Protein1 g
  • Carbohydrates0 g
  • Total Fat17 g
  • Dietary Fiber0 g
  • Cholesterol102 mg
  • sodium112 mg
  • Total Sugars0 g

Hollandaise Sauce

Questions & Reviews

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  • Jenn

    This really was so easy and so good! I used it right away and my whole family was so impressed with it!

    Thank you, that's so great! Nice work!