How to Make Béchamel Without the Dairy

Béchamel is an incredibly versatile cooking sauce. Once you’ve mastered it, there is no limit to the amount of recipes you can make with it—from creamy Italian pasta to hearty Greek moussaka to indulgent French croque monsieur.

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And the good news is, it’s incredibly easy to get the hang of, even if you’re using plant-based ingredients. Find out how to make delicious dairy-free béchamel below, as well as a few of our favorite ways to use this super velvety, all-purpose sauce.

Where did béchamel come from?

Most assume that béchamel sauce is French, which makes sense, because it was named after Louis de Béchamel, one of Louis XIV’s favorite court masters. Indeed, one of the first documented records of the sauce is in a French cookbook, called Le Cuisinier François, written by François Pierre Sieur de La Varenne. One theory is that La Varenne called the sauce béchamel as a complement to the French noblemen, but there is limited evidence to support this. 

Loving It Vegan

RELATED: Upgrade Your Grilled Cheese With Plant-Based Croque Monsieur

However, some believe that béchamel isn’t French at all, despite its distinctly French name. This is because the recipe is very similar to an Italian white sauce called colletta, which was used across Italy before Le Cuisinier François was published. Some theories state that it was this Italian sauce that inspired La Varenne to create béchamel, but again, the evidence is limited.

Wherever béchamel came from originally, today, this sauce is incredibly popular, and it’s a staple recipe in professional kitchens and homes all over the world. It’s usually made with a mix of flour, butter, and milk, before it’s seasoned with salt and pepper and customized with other herbs or spices. However, animal ingredients are not mandatory for a deliciously creamy béchamel.

How to make béchamel sauce without dairy

In dairy-free béchamel, butter and milk are simply swapped out for their plant-based counterparts, like plant-based butter and oat milk. “Any plant based milk of your choice will do the trick,” confirms recipe developer Alison Andrews in this recipe for vegan béchamel on the blog Loving It Vegan. The ingredients are then whisked and heated to form a roux with flour, just like with a traditional dairy-based béchamel. If butter is too overpowering, you can also swap in olive oil into the mix, too, and the resulting sauce will still be velvety and versatile. 

Vegan recipes with béchamel

Once you’ve made your béchamel, you can combine it with a number of seasonings and plant-based ingredients to create a delicious, dairy-free recipe. Find some of our go-to ways to use the sauce below, from creamed corn to lasagna.

Charity Morgan

1Truffle Cream’d Corn With ​​Vegan Béchamel

Creamed corn is a simple, nourishing, comforting mix of béchamel and corn. It’s a versatile side dish, and can be eaten with everything from roasted vegetables to stews and savory pies, depending on your mood. Making it dairy-free is easy. In this recipe from the Unbelievably Vegan cookbook, chef Charity Morgan whips up a béchamel with ingredients like yellow onion, vegan butter, flour, pink Himalayan salt, and dairy-free milk. After that, she adds the corn, alongside ingredients like truffle oil, vegan cream cheese, and nutritional yeast for maximum flavor.
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Holly V. Gray

2Pumpkin Lasagna Rollups

These tasty, hearty lasagna rollups are ideal for sharing, so keep them in mind for your next gathering or potluck. They’re easy to make with a combination of tofu-spinach ricotta, béchamel (of course), and a can of pumpkin purée. If you prefer, you can swap out the pumpkin for tomato or sweet potato purée instead.
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School Night Vegan

3Lasagna With Béchamel Sauce

If you prefer your lasagna in the traditional format, check out this comforting version of the Italian staple from School Night Vegan. “It’s packed with a delicious meaty ragu and layered with the silkiest, tastiest vegan béchamel sauce,” writes recipe developer Richard Makin. We say it’s soon to become your go-to, midweek pick-me-up.
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Lazy Cat Kitchen

4Moussaka With Creamy Béchamel

Moussaka is similar to lasagna, but there are a few key differences. Instead of pasta, the béchamel sauce and ragu are layered with potato and eggplant. It’s a flavorful Greek classic. In this version, recipe developer Ania Marcinowska walks you through how to make a creamy béchamel using soaked cashews. “This moussaka may be healthier than the traditional, but it’s still rather indulgently crowned with a generous layer of cashew-based béchamel that rounds all the flavors off nicely,” writes Marcinowska.
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Zucker & Jagdwurst

5 Vegan Croque Monsieur

A croque monsieur is like a grilled cheese taken to the next level. It’s just as comforting but a little more indulgent, thanks to the addition of creamy béchamel sauce. Learn how to make it vegan with this recipe from Zucker & Jagdwurst, which combines ingredients like nutritional yeast, soy milk, and dairy-free grated cheese to make the flavor-packed filling. “We decided to use vegan cheese from the store, but since it doesn’t melt as dairy cheese would, we’ll add some grated vegan cheese already to the béchamel to get a nice creamy-cheesy texture,” says recipe developer Julia Jagdwurst.
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