Can You Freeze Bearnaise Sauce?

3 minutes

Bearnaise sauce is something that’s not quite as well known as some of its compatriots (such as mayonnaise or hollandaise), but it’s certainly as tasty as them. If you’ve gone ahead and made way too much, what can you do with those leftovers?

How to Freeze Bearnaise Sauce

Before you get to freezing it, you need to ensure the bearnaise sauce is completely fresh. Don’t let it sit in the fridge for a day or two before freezing it.

In professional kitchens, bearnaise sauce is made fresh every morning – that allows the sauce to be bright and fresh in flavor, ideal for any number of dishes.

Got it made fresh and are ready to freeze it? Then follow these simple steps:

1. Cool: Allow the bearnaise sauce that you’re working with to cool to room temperature. This step is vital. Protein-rich dishes like this can be rife with all sorts of bacteria and fungus if they’re allowed to sit and generate condensation when they’re warm.
2. Bag Up: Once cool, transfer the bearnaise sauce into freezer bags. You can transfer all of the sauce into a single, large bag if you’d like, or you could transfer the sauce into several, smaller bags so that you can thaw only one portion at a time.
3. Seal: Once the bearnaise sauce is in the bags, leave a little room for the sauce to expand into when it freezes, and then seal the bags shut. As with freezing any liquid, making sure that the bag is sealed is vital to ensure that you prevent spillages.
4. Freeze: Place the bag into your freezer, standing upright to prevent spillages, once more, before leaving it alone. It will freeze solid over time and can be kept in your freezer, once frozen solid, for around a month.

3 Tips for Freezing Bearnaise Sauce

Now you know how to freeze it, we’ve got our 3 top tips which we strongly recommend following when freezing bearnaise sauce to have the best results:

Ensure a Tight Seal!
Spilling anything in your freezer can be an absolute nightmare, especially when you consider that, in this case, the principal ingredient is eggs. This means that the sauce can become food unsafe rapidly, and any spillages can be disastrous.

Reheating Until Steaming
When you reheat the sauce, it’s important to make sure that the sauce emits the barest wisps of steam from the top layer – this is how you know it’s boiling hot throughout, while also not boiling it. Boiling the sauce would result in the eggs scrambling!

Use to Line the Freezer
Since liquids are rarely susceptible to freezer burn, it makes a lot of sense to line your freezer with them. Pressing them against the wall will allow them to take the brunt of the frost front in your freezer, saving your other food from freezer burn in the long run. 

How Long Can You Freeze Bearnaise Sauce?

You can freeze bearnaise sauce for around a month before it’s no longer safe to eat. The reason we insist upon this time frame is that eggs are quite risky food, especially when they’re being cooled, frozen, thawed, and reheated.

How Do You Defrost Bearnaise Sauce?

The best way to defrost bearnaise sauce is to allow it to thaw to a liquid in the fridge, and then cook it in a small saucepan over low heat.

This will allow it to become hot, while also preventing any side of it from outright boiling, as it likely would in the microwave.

Can You Refreeze Bearnaise Sauce?

While you technically can refreeze bearnaise sauce, we would advise against it.

The reason for this is that eggs are, as we’ve said before, quite a risky food. Therefore, for safety, it’s best to handle them with caution.

Does Bearnaise Sauce Freeze Well?

Yes, bearnaise sauce does freeze well – it doesn’t lose much, if any, of it’s texture, color, or flavor while it’s in the freezer.

Related FAQs

If you’ve still got questions about freezing bearnaise sauce or bearnaise sauce in general, then these may help: