Beurre Manié

Beurre manié (French for “kneaded butter”) is an elegant French technique for quickly thickening sauces and soups at the end of cooking. It is a paste of equal parts soft butter and flour, thoroughly kneaded together until uniform.

Unlike a roux, the mixture in beurre manié is not pre-cooked — it is added raw. Small lumps of the paste are whisked into a hot (but not boiling) liquid with a continuous whisking; the butter quickly melts and evenly distributes the flour, preventing it from clumping, and after a short heating the sauce thickens and takes on a pleasant sheen and buttery taste. Beurre manié is the cook's indispensable “rescuer” when a sauce has come out too thin and must be brought to the right consistency in literally a minute.