Velvety Cheese Sauce
Course: Condiments & SeasoningsCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy
Servings
16
servingsPrep time
5
minutesCooking time
10
minutesCalories
117
kcalTotal Carbs
1
gramNet carbs
1
gramFat
9
gramsProtein
7
gramsThis cheese sauce is ridiculously easy to make, thanks to the sodium citrate. This ingredients keeps the fat from separating from the cheese as it melts and creates the velvety texture of a nacho cheese sauce while having a far “classier” flavor. Play around with the type of cheese or liquid and add in the seasoning of your choice to really make this sauce your own.
Ingredients
1.25 cups chicken broth (300mL)
1.5 tsp sodium citrate (10g)
4 cups shredded sharp cheddar (450g) *see note
Directions
- In a medium pot over medium, dissolve sodium citrate in the chicken broth. Bring to a simmer, then reduce the heat to medium low.
- Add the cheese, one handful at a time, whisking until melted before adding the next handful.
- Once all of the cheese has been added and the texture is smooth and velvety, serve over vegetables or the dippable item of your choosing (chips, crackers, fries, etc.).
Recipe Video
Notes
- Nutritional information based on a serving size of approximately 1/4 cup (60mL).
- My 4 cups of cheddar were fairly well packed. This is a case when using weight measurements is a good idea.
Hi Steve,
This sauce is delicious! But my sauce didn’t fully encorporate. There was some broth sitting on the top even after the cheese was totally melted. Any thoughts?
Did you weight your cheese? If there’s left over liquid, it’s a sign that the proportions of cheese and sodium citrate are off.
Steve!!! You’ve open my eyes to tons of possibilities!!! Thank you for all your hard work, Dude!!!
Brenda in TX
Hi Steve,
I don’t see xantham gum in the ingredients list. Please clarify. Thanks.
There is no xanthan gum in this recipe.
You mentioned xanthum gum, in your reply to the persons question, I didn’t see it in your ingredients? Typo perhaps?
But how do you know how much xanthum gum or sodium citrate to use???
It was a typo in my reply (fixed). The amount of sodium citrate you use is a percentage of the weight of the cheese and liquid and I have seen recipes use anywhere from 1% to 3% of total weight. You can adjust your liquid amounts depending on if you want to make a cheese sauce, a cheese soup, or a melting cheese slice.
Hey Steve, thanks for making me even more of a superstar in the kitchen! I watched your youtube vid and immediately ordered the sodium citrate, so exciting! This is a game changer, I am having so much fun with it. I’ll have to keep an eye on my husband though since I caught him drinking ladles of cheese after dinner. Yikes! That can’t be good lol.
I finally got my sodium citrate, but I’m out of block cheese. Can I use the store bought cheddar, or just wait until I get them block?
You can use store bought shredded.
Thank you! Can’t wait to try it!
I think cheese quality makes a difference. It looked good and i used a bit more cheese by weight maybe 50 grams but as it cooled i had a blob and then liquid. The liquid had all the flavor and the blob was like Nickelodeon slime. Will be trying a better cheese and looking at fat content as well. Thanks for sharing as i plan on making this work with some truffle cheese i have but have to perfect the process first.
Yikes! I’ve never had that happen. You want the weight of the sodium citrate to equal between 2% and 3% of the combined weight of your cheese and liquid.
Hey, Steve, if you end up in this situation (just thinking ahead, actually) do you think it would work to mix more sodium citrate into a small amount of water then mix it in? Thanks! After all these years, I’m finally going to make time to try it. I have a bunch of “apocalypse” cheese in the deep freeze and this is a perfect time to make use of it.
I don’t understand your question or your reasoning behind mixing sodium citrate into water first.
When mixing in thickeners, it seems to work better to mix them into water first, so I was trying to decide ahead whether that might be a good idea.
Living at 5800 feet, I found that I boiled away a significant amount of moisture when I made this recipe yesterday and ended up well short of four cups, and it was really thick. So I decided to add eight ounces of water, and decided to mix more sodium citrate into those eight ounces before stirring them in. It worked out well.
After the fact, I’m going to presume your puzzlement indicates there is no need to add water, if unwanted, when deciding to add sodium citrate to an existing mixture for better emulsification.
I made this oh so delicious sauce!! I’d like to reheat to pour over nachos. What’s your recommendations for doing this? I don’t want to screw up this awesome sauce!!
I’ve reheated it on the stove top, in a toaster oven, in a microwave, and sous vide without any issues.
Sous vide! That’s a nice tip. I may not have though of that. Is there an ideal temperature?
I’d say 140F would probably be enough.
Delicious! Made this tonight to put over my mock scallop potatoes casserole made with radishes, smoked ham and fresh broccoli.
Measuring by weight, I got the same stringyness as mentioned in other comments. I used cheddar, Colby Jack, and Gruyere in my sauce. I decided to add another 1/2 teaspoon of sodium citrate directly into the sauce, whisking well. That resolved the problem with the texture with only a minute of stirring. Just delicious. Keto On!
WOW! This is fantastic cheese! Where has sodium citrate been all my life??? I halved the recipe and used some packaged pre-shredded colby monterey jack and added a block of cheddar that I shredded. Had beef broth already open in the fridge, so I used that instead of chicken. Mixed up wonderfully.
Hi Steve, This cheese sauce looks interesting. I am looking to make a cheesy white sauce. Do you have a white sauce that is gluten free? I made one on Sunday with Arrowroot powder to thicken and then added cheese. It kind of separated, but everyone thought it tasted good in my Creamed onion casserole. Maybe I should get the Sodium Citrate? Any thoughts to help me? Thanks. Love your channel.
I’ve made a white sauce using cream cheese. Typically cream cheese has guar gum and/or locust bean gum in it. That works as both a thickener and an emulsifier. Sorry but I didn’t record the recipe; I just made it on the fly.
Hi Steve. Love your channel.
Can this recipe be refrigerated for later use? If so, how long does it keep?
Yes it refrigerates. My rule for anything in the fridge that isn’t acidic is that it’s good for a week. I’m sure the sodium citrate adds some acidity to this (thereby prolonging its shelf life), but I’ll stick with my “one week” answer anyway.
Hey Steve – I have made this delicious sauce! I combined it with low carb macaroni, added 1 pound of browned/fried hamburger, place in a casserole dish or rectangle cake pan, sprinkle (liberally!) with shredded cheese (same or different than used for sauce!) and bake for 25 – 30 minutes in a 350 oven. Or until cheese on top starts to brown. Let cool for about 10 minutes and serve it up! IT WAS FANTASTIC!!!
Reading that made my stomach growl.
This was AWESOME. I used the excess juice strained from fresh salsa, a mix of pepper jack cheese and sharp cheddar, plus a bit of new Mexico hot chile powder and some green chile powder to taste also. Made a half batch and ended up with 1.5 cups for slightly over 3 total carbs in the entire batch!
Next time around I would use straight pepper jack to hopefully eliminate the need for hot chile powder and green chile powder
Oh wow! That sounds SO good!
Excellent sauce recipe. I have made it many times.
My attempt at this recipe was not successful. The taste was amazing! However, the texture was very grainy. No matter how much I stirred/whisked, I could not reach that velvety texture as in your video. My sodium citrate did not complete melt into the chicken stock. It was rather clumpy. Also, I used pre-shredded kraft sharp cheddar cheese. I’m sure this was my fault somewhere along the line, so I will definitely give it another try.
Awesome!!!! so easy too…..
Is it possible to substitute another ingredient for the sodium citrate, like xanthan gum, arrow root or sodium algenate?
I really want to make this but would prefer to use stuff I already have on hand. Having to order another big bag of a random/one time use ingredient that I cant source locally is a bummer. Thanks for all you do!
Sodium citrate is a very specific ingredient. Nothing works like it when it comes emulsifying fats in cheese.
I found several instances on the web explaining how to make sodium citrate from baking soda and citric acid. Seems like an alternative, if you don’t want to buy it. You can find citric acid at the grocery store.
I hate to order sodium citrate for one recipe. Is there something you can use instead?? I have all kinds of things xanthum gum, acacia fiber, but none of that and I need to make a cheese sauce tomorrow. Or I’ll have to use a different recipe and try this some other time.
For cheese sauce / fondue, I think your only option would be cornstarch – and that’s probably not something you’d want on keto. Sodium citrate is one of those ingredients with a very specific usage – cheese sauces and creating melting cheese slices from any type of cheese. I’ve encountered nothing that can do what it does so well.
Hi, Steve, I can’t express how much I appreciate your hard work. Thank you. I finally made this cheese. Idk what took me so long. It takes great! I added a tsp of arrowroot as a thickener and it seemed to enhance the cheesiness.
I’ll have to try that the next time I make it.
I just made this recipe exactly as directed, and it’s fantastic! Thanks for all your hard work, Steve.
This is perfect. I shred all my cheese myself, so I weighed out 16 ounces of block cheese as 4 ounces makes about 1 cup of shredded cheese. Worked perfectly!