If you’re familiar with French cuisine or just enjoy a good eggs Benedict for a Sunday morning breakfast chances are you’re familiar with hollandaise sauce. And if you’re familiar with hollandaise chances are you’re also familiar with its descendant the decadent béarnaise sauce. Both sauces are very similar with béarnaise sauce itself being derived from hollandaise about 200 years ago. Both sauces use butter egg yolk and an acidic ingredient. So if they’re so similar how can they be so different that they deserve completely different names?
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|---|---|---|---|
 Health·WHYS | 2019-08-31 07:36:51 |  3,144 Views |
What is the difference between hollandaise sauce and béarnaise sauce?
Simply put the ingredients added to (or in) béarnaise sauce are what make it completely different from its popular predecessor. While hollandaise sauce uses a few simple and readily available ingredients and is rightly known for its béarnaise sauce it adds complexity to its main ingredient and its additional ingredients.
First béarnaise replaces the lemon juice in hollandaise with a more nuanced white wine vinegar. Second béarnaise sauce uses ingredients that simply aren’t found in hollandaise such as shallots tarragon and other herbs making it much spicier and also somewhat thinner in texture. It’s these key differences that set béarnaise apart from hollandaise.
Although béarnaise and hollandaise are two different sauces they share the same basic premise and even many of the same flavor characteristics. These sauces have so much in common that you could theoretically make béarnaise sauce from leftover hollandaise sauce by reducing your hollandaise and adding the additional ingredients called for in béarnaise. It’s not exactly a one-for-one exchange but it does show how similar these two sauces are and how béarnaise may have developed from hollandaise from scratch. This is certainly feasible given the timeline for each.
