Béchamel sauce is a white sauce made with flour, butter and milk usually flavoured with onion, bay, pepper and nutmeg. It may have added cream. It is one of the ‘mother’ sauces and the basis for others such as Mornay sauce and sauce Soubise. There is a version called sauce béchamel grasse where stock replaces the milk. Béchamel sauce is named after Louis de Béchamel, a politician and financier at the court of Louis XIV.