Hollandaise sauce

Hollandaise sauce (/hɒlənˈdeɪz/ or /ˈhɒləndeɪz/; from French sauce hollandaise [sos ɔlɑ̃dɛz] meaning "Dutch sauce") is a mixture of egg yolk, melted butter, and lemon juice (or a white wine or vinegar reduction). It is usually seasoned with salt, and either white pepper or cayenne pepper.

It is a key ingredient of eggs Benedict, and is often served on vegetables such as steamed asparagus.

Sauce hollandaise is French for "Hollandic sauce". The first documented recipe is from 1651 in La Varenne's Le Cuisinier François for "asparagus with fragrant sauce":

make a sauce with some good fresh butter, a little vinegar, salt, and nutmeg, and an egg yolk to bind the sauce; take care that it doesn't curdle

The name was given during the Franco-Dutch war.

La Varenne is credited with bringing sauces out of the Middle Ages with his publication and may well have invented hollandaise sauce. A more recent name for it is sauce Isigny, named after Isigny-sur-Mer, which is famous for its butter. Isigny sauce is found in recipe books starting in the 19th century.

By the 19th century, sauces had been classified into four categories by Carême. One of his categories was allemande, which was a stock-based sauce using egg and lemon juice. Escoffier replaced allemande with egg-based emulsions, specifically mayonnaise, in his list of the mother sauces of haute cuisine. Hollandaise was included in the section on derivatives but in the English translation, the mention of mayonnaise as a mother sauce was removed and hollandaise was moved to the section on mother sauces.

While many assume that a true hollandaise sauce should only contain the basic ingredients of eggs, butter, and lemon, Prosper Montagne suggested using either a white wine or vinegar reduction, similar to a Béarnaise sauce, to help improve the taste.