John Myers
For an easy way to make a roux without butter, use vegetable oil in a 1:2 ratio to flour. Heat the fat and – as soon as it is liquid – stir in the flour using a whisk until a doughy mass has formed. Now you can use the light roux without butter to thicken a soup or sauce, or for lentils, which you then combine with spaetzle. The roux with oil turns out darker if you brown everything a little longer. Our experts know how to prepare the alternative to the sauce thickener, including with butter. They also tell you what is meant by sweating when cooking.
Vegan roux: without butter, with fat
Making a roux without fat won’t work. In the end, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a vegetable or animal, but in the end, a roux characterizes the combination of flour and fat. Coconut, rapeseed, hot-pressed olive, and sunflower oil, i.e. types that can be heated to a high temperature, are particularly suitable as a plant-based alternative. To thicken sauces with your no-butter roux, slowly stir in its ingredients until it has the consistency you want. This is based on a chemical process: the large molecules of the flour first dissolve in the liquid and then combine with the water molecules. The heat causes the water to find its way into the starch, the compound begins to swell and the sauce becomes thicker. Our experts will tell you how to thicken soups.
