How to Make the Perfect Cheese Sauce Recipe (Quick & Easy)

The ultimate guide How to Make a cheese sauce for pasta, chicken, veggies or anything else you’d like to have a lovely simple and easy cheese sauce on.

(Gluten-Free, Vegetarian)

This simple cheese sauce recipe is going to become your steady fall-back-on-sauce when you don’t know what to make for dinner. I can’t really remember when I learned how to make a cheese sauce from scratch. What I do know is that I am the queen of cheese sauces these days.

Anytime I do not know what to make for dinner and I’ve already got through dinner route of Vegetarian Lo-Mein, Slow Cooker Jambalaya, and Picadillo Mexican Beef. Those are all the meals I fall back on when I want leftovers and minimal work. There comes a point in the week that I just want something different but do not want to head to the store. Gluten-Free Pasta with a Cheese Sauce? YES. Yes please.

How Do you Make a Cheese Sauce

In a large skillet over medium heat melt the butter.
Pour in heavy cream, salt and pepper. Turn heat down too medium-low heat. Continually stir until cream begins to thicken.
Slowly stir in cheddar cheese and stir until cheese is melted. Spoon over your favorite veggies or pasta.

It is THAT simple. Ditch the processed ingredients that most people use for a cheese sauce and make this cheese sauce from scratch with minimal ingredients.

You can make so many different varieties of flavors with this cheese sauce.

Buffalo Sauce – add some of your favorite hot sauce or spice flavors. Kind of like our Quinoa Buffalo Mac n Cheese.
Cajun – I am on a cajun kick so add about 2 Tablespoons of cajun seasoning to the sauce. Hello deliciousness.
Sun dried Tomatoes – We have a recipe coming soon but adding some sun dried tomatoes to this cheese sauce is heavenly for a tuscan style sauce.

How to Make a Mac n Cheese Sauce

After I realized I could make a cheese sauce for homemade macaroni with simple ingredients and under 20 minutes my family was hooked. If you need a creamy vegan mac and cheese recipe this one is perfect for that.

Want the dairy? Follow along here.

In a large skillet over medium heat melt the butter.
Pour in heavy cream, salt and pepper. Turn heat down too medium-low heat. Continually stir until cream begins to thicken.
Add the cheddar cheese and all the tangy best cheeses you can find to the mixture.
Pour onto cooked gluten-free pasta anddd woah we’ve made mac n cheese sauce.

You notice that it is the same process? Yeah exactly, because it is. This cheese sauce is the most versatile recipe in the world.

I personally like adding parmesan cheese for my gluten free mac and cheese as well.

How to Make sure your cheese sauce turns out right

Quality – I cannot stress enough that using high quality ingredients is important. Higher quality ingredients tend to have more fat and are not processed as much in terms of added ingredients.
Beware of water – Depending on the quality of ingredients just even a tiny bit of water can have the sauce separate on you. Which goes back to quality ingredients. We’ll help you figure out why and how your cheese sauce recipe didn’t turn out below with this step.
Heat – You want the heat to be low enough to thicken our cream BUT not hot enough that it is rolling bubbling. Having it too hot will cause your sauce to burn and/or separate.
When it is done – Below you will see the picture. This is the best way to tell if the cheese sauce is ready to be poured or stirred into your dish. When begins to thicken and you stir the sauce should stay apart for a couple seconds before folding back into itself. If it doesn’t do this, continue to cook on a low simmer until more water is evaporated from the sauce.

What if the cheese sauce separates

Water – this is going to be your enemy if you do not use high quality ingredients. Butter that isn’t real butter or cheese that is highly processed. Generally they have either water added to them or other ingredients that will fight the sauce. If they are lower quality generally they have added ingredients so beware of that.
More Water Info– If the ingredients used in the cheese sauce are lower quality the time the sauce will separate unfortunately will be when you stir in your cooked pasta or steamed veggies. The sauce will still taste fine and there is nothing wrong with it just next time use different ingredients.
Heat – You want the heat to be low enough to thicken our cream BUT not hot enough that it is rolling bubbling. Having it too hot will cause your sauce to burn and/or separate.