For Smooth, Stable Cheese Sauces, Use Cornstarch and Evaporated Milk (2024)
I don't know much about football, but I do know that if you're stuck watching a game at your friend's house, for no discernible reason other than to see New York teams get creamed, you'll be much happier if you've got a bag of chips and a bowl full of cheese dip.
Cheese dip wasn't really a thing in my household when I was a kid. I was first introduced to it by the mother of one of my American friends, who, crucially, had access to the magic that is Velveeta. One moment, we were settling in to watch a bootleg VHS of The Mighty Ducks, and the next, there I was, sticking a chip into an unnaturally yellow pool of hot cheese flecked with bits of jarred salsa. The rest, as they say, is history.
What I didn't know at the time was that you don't need Velveeta to make a smooth cheese dip; all you need, as Kenji discovered years ago, is a little bit of cornstarch and some evaporated milk, and you can transform most cheeses from their semisolid state into a pourable consistency.
The reason Velveeta melts so readily into a puddle of uniform-seeming goo is that it includes sodium alginate, an emulsifying salt that's extracted from brown algae. (It performs a function similar to that of sodium phosphate, the emulsifying salt first stumbled upon by James Kraft circa 1912, which paved the way for the Kraft processed-cheese empire.) Basically, sodium alginate helps the natural emulsifiers contained within cheese (cheese, after all, is a gel),* creating an emulsion that can survive heating beyond the temperatures at which a cheese's emulsion will normally break.
*From Modernist Cuisine: "The casein proteins in milk coagulate to form a gel; they then settle out as curds. This process occurs at the outset of all cheese making. The gel traps the fat droplets in the milk, turning it into a solid emulsion. The solid gel makes cheese a very stable emulsion unless it is heated sufficiently to melt the gel, at which point the emulsion breaks."
If your goal is to produce a stable liquid emulsion with cheese, there are several routes you can take. In one of his two baked macaroni and cheese recipes, Daniel uses sodium citrate, a common emulsifying salt in the modernist pantry. Make a solution of it by whisking it into water or milk, then simply melt cheese into the solution; the sodium citrate will help keep the emulsion stable, just as sodium alginate does in Velveeta. You can also use Kenji's method for making cheese sauce, which relies on the same interplay between starch, liquid, and cheese as his three-ingredient, 10-minute macaroni and cheese recipe.
To increase the stability of the final emulsion, Kenji adds evaporated milk to the mix, which contributes a high volume of milk proteins without adding too much water. To get an idea of how proteins add stability to an emulsion, think of mozzarella, a low-fat, high-moisture, high-protein cheese. It takes very high temperatures to get mozzarella's fat and water to separate out. Compare that to cheddar, a high-fat, high-moisture, low-protein cheese, which starts leaking grease if you hold a piece in your palm for even a few moments.
Apart from the added milk proteins, the emulsion's stability depends on the inclusion of some kind of starch. In the macaroni and cheese recipe, that starch comes from the pasta itself, which is why we use only a bare minimum of water to cook the pasta, thereby increasing the concentration of starch in the cooking liquid. For a cheese dip or sauce, the addition of cornstarch serves a similar function: Starch molecules absorb water and expand, not only thickening the liquid phase of the sauce, but also physically preventing the proteins from binding into long, tangled strands and the fats from separating out and pooling. (Daniel uses cornstarch to play a similar role in his fondue recipe.)
The best way to incorporate the cornstarch is to coat the grated cheese in it, which ensures an even distribution and prevents the formation of annoying clumps. The great thing about this method is that by adjusting the ratios slightly, you can get different consistencies, without worrying about the resulting emulsion breaking. For dips, you'll want to use a tablespoon of cornstarch per pound of cheese, then add at least five ounces of evaporated milk. After that, you can use more evaporated milk to thin out your dip as much as you need.
For dips, you'll want to use a tablespoon of cornstarch per pound of cheese, then add at least five ounces of evaporated milk. After that, you can use more evaporated milk to thin out your dip as much as you need.
Those starch molecules thicken the sauce, while the concentrated milk proteins from the evaporated milk add that signature dairy flavor, without all the water you'd get from cream or regular milk. Translation? Smooth, shiny, perfectly emulsified cheese that doesn't clump, taste floury, or break into greasy pools.
Dice the butter into small cubes and melt it in a saucepan over low heat. Once the butter is melted, begin whisking in the flour. When all the flour is incorporated, continue stirring and cooking for a few minutes to activate the starch granules. This is what will thicken the sauce.
Chances are, you have all-purpose flour in your pantry. Flour makes a fine thickener, although you must treat it a little differently from cornstarch. Unlike cornstarch, flour doesn't make sauces more glossy, and if not cooked completely, it can slightly change the flavor of a dish.
For a cheese dip or sauce, the addition of cornstarch serves a similar function: Starch molecules absorb water and expand, not only thickening the liquid phase of the sauce, but also physically preventing the proteins from binding into long, tangled strands and the fats from separating out and pooling.
Evaporated milk comes in three varieties based on the amount of fat: whole milk, low-fat and skim. The benefit of evaporated milk is shelf-life: canned milk can remain stable for up to two years for peak flavor, and maybe longer. If you open a can of evaporated milk and it is dark yellow or brown, don't use it.
There's a way to save gritty cheese sauces, and you likely already have it in your fridge: lemon juice. A squirt of lemon comes to the rescue of ruined sauces in a pinch. All you have to do is cool the broken sauce, add a tablespoon of lemon juice (or white wine, if you don't mind the flavor), and whisk vigorously.
The ratio could not be simpler. For every cup of grated cheese (about 3 ounces) you will need a quarter cup of water and a half-teaspoon of sodium citrate. Heat the water to a simmer, add the sodium citrate to dissolve, then whisk in the cheese of your choice a bit at a time until you get a smooth and creamy mixture.
One of the most common ways to help cheese melt smoothly is to add starch: this is a process that works in sauces like mornay, or nacho cheese sauce. Starches and other thickeners will physically impede fat molecules from joining up into larger droplets, as well as making the water phase of the cheese more viscous.
Why is my Cheese Sauce lumpy? The reason the sauce is lumpy is because the milk hasn't been properly incorporated into the roux (which is the butter and flour basis for the sauce). What is this? Use a whisk or a stick blender to save a sauce that's gone lumpy.
Slowly add a cup of the cheese sauce into the bowl containing the egg yolk, stirring to combine. Then add the mixture back into the cheese sauce on the stove, stirring to combine. Let the sauce boil over medium heat, and the cheese sauce should thicken.
I've made mozzarella from scratch using dried milk (using rennet) in the past and I've made ricotta cheese using evaporated milk. (And yes, I also have freeze dried mozzarella cheese in my storage.)
As its name suggests, evaporated milk is a dairy product made by removing about 60% of the water from cow's milk through a slow heating process. Once the water is removed, the mixture, which is about 7% fat, is hom*ogenized into an emulsion, then canned and sterilized.
Evaporated milk is a highly concentrated source of milk protein micelles—bundles of proteins that can act as powerful emulsifying agents—which help to keep the sauce creamy and smooth.
To make evaporated milk, fresh hom*ogenized milk is heated to a simmer until the liquid is reduced by 60 percent through evaporation, a common technique used by chefs when making sauces. The result is milk that has a rich, creamy texture and a concentrated level of nutrients, especially calcium and Vitamin D.
According to Sharma, when whole milk is gently heated during the evaporation process, “the casein starts to get covered by the soluble whey proteins,” thereby protecting it from further heat damage, making evaporated milk less susceptible to curdling.
While it's delightful when used for sweet treats, evaporated milk is the secret to an incredibly tender cut of meat. Dairy in general is the key to supple meat, which is why you should always soak your lamb chops in milk and soak ground meat in heavy cream.
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