Hollandaise Sauce
A weeknight-friendly vegetarian built around egg yolks, water and unsalted butter — roughly 60 minutes start to finish, and rated medium to make. Scroll down for the ingredient checklist, a serving scaler and unit converter, and the method broken into 7 steps.
You'll mainly reach for saucepan and pan. At medium difficulty across 7 steps, it's manageable with a little attention. As written, it's meat-free.
What you'll need
Pantry staples (you likely have these)
🔁 Unit converter
How to make it
- Gently melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat, then set it aside to cool slightly while you prepare the yolks.
- Bring a saucepan with a few centimetres of water to a bare simmer and choose a heatproof bowl that sits over it without touching the water.
- In the bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the water and lemon juice until pale and slightly frothy.
- Set the bowl over the simmering water and whisk constantly for 2 to 3 minutes until the mixture thickens to a ribbon and reaches about 65 C, taking care not to let the eggs scramble.
- Remove the bowl from the heat and very slowly pour in the warm melted butter in a thin stream, whisking continuously, leaving behind the milky solids at the bottom of the pan, until the sauce is thick and emulsified.
- Season with salt, white pepper, and a pinch of cayenne, then whisk in a little extra lemon juice or a teaspoon of warm water if the sauce is too thick.
- Serve the hollandaise immediately, or keep it warm for up to 30 minutes over barely warm water, whisking occasionally to prevent it splitting.
You'll use: Saucepan · Pan · Whisk
Ingredient substitutions
- Butter
- olive oil (¾ the amount) · coconut oil · margarine
- Lemon
- lime · 1 tbsp white wine vinegar per lemon
Tips & common questions
How long does Hollandaise Sauce take to make?
About 60 minutes from start to finish — an estimate based on the 7 steps and 7 ingredients. Times vary with your kitchen and how much prep you do ahead.
What can I use instead of butter?
Try olive oil (¾ the amount). See the substitutions section above for more swaps.
Can I scale this recipe up or down?
Yes — use the servings control above the ingredients and every quantity rescales automatically (fractions included). Cooking times stay roughly the same; very large batches may need a little longer.
Is Hollandaise Sauce vegetarian?
Its ingredients contain no meat or fish, so it's suitable for vegetarians. Check any cheeses for animal rennet if that matters to you.
Related recipes
Hollandaise Sauce is an original recipe developed in-house by Consomee. Photo: Hollandaise sauce with whisky.jpg by Jim Reynolds from Cleveland, USA, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons. We add the serving scaler, ingredient tools, timing and structure on top — how we source recipes.