How to make hollandaise sauce in just minutes with a handful of ingredients, a blender, and an easy, no-fail method. Perfect for breakfast, brunch, eggs benedict, salmon, steak, and more!

It appears that 2022 may be my year of homemade sauce recipes. I’ve recently shared a garlic alfredo sauce, a lemon garlic butter sauce, among others. Now it’s the turn of this rich and creamy blender Hollandaise sauce recipe.

For the longest time, I avoided emulsion-based sauces. And then I cracked homemade mayonnaise! So, now it’s open season on all things emulsified (or, as I like to call them, my “fancy sauces”). However, unlike traditional Hollandaise, which is notoriously technical, this quick hollandaise recipe is practically fail-proof.

All you need is 5 ingredients plus salt & pepper, an immersion blender (or regular blender), and just a few minutes to prepare the best easy hollandaise sauce to impress at breakfast, brunch, and dinner!

What Is Hollandaise Sauce?

Hollandaise sauce (formerly Dutch sauce) is an emulsion-based sauce, similar to mayonnaise. The hollandise ingredients include egg yolks, melted butter, and lemon juice (and/or a vinegar reduction). It is popularly known as “the” eggs Benedict sauce but has several uses.

Despite its name, this sauce is popularly known as a French sauce. The first documented recipe was in a French cookbook “Le Cuisinier François” in the mid-17^th century. It also comes under the banner of the five French “mother sauces”. And, it is easily transformed into many other popular sauces with simple recipe tweaks.

While considered quite a “fancy” sauce, it’s fairly simple to prepare with this recipe. Traditional hollandise recipes are highly technically challenging and require standing over a stove, whisking constantly, and hoping the eggs don’t cook. However, this quick blender hollandaise sauce recipe manages the temperature control in the easiest way possible.

The result and silky, velvety, and wonderfully rich every time! It may not be a classic hollandaise, but it achieves fantastic results with only 10% of the effort. Now that’s a win in my eyes! So enjoy it as egg benedict sauce, over asparagus, seafood, steak, and more!

Hollandaise vs. Bearnaise sauce?

While very similar, Bearnaise sauce is a derivative, also called a “child”, of Hollandaise. It replaces the acid (vinegar and/or lemon) with an infused vinegar reduction made with shallots, tarragon, and chervil. It is popularly served with steak.

What Is in Hollandaise Sauce

There are just a handful of hollanaise ingredients to make a rich and creamy hollindaise sauce.

• Egg yolks: Just like custard and mayonnaise, this sauce gets its incredible richness from egg yolks. I recommend using pasteurized eggs (or pasteurizing them yourself), as they won’t be heated in this recipe.

You can save the leftover egg whites to make meringue, an egg-white omelette, etc.

• Butter: Use high-quality unsalted butter for the best flavor and consistency. If you use lightly salted butter, I don’t recommend using any additional salt in the recipe. Plus, you may still find it a little too salty, which is why I recommend unsalted.

Alternatively, you could use ghee/clarified butter, but you’ll still need to heat it.

• Vinegar: I use white wine vinegar, which I reduce for the best flavor and consistency. However, feel free to omit this and use additional lemon juice, if preferred (half the amount).
• Lemon: Use fresh lemon juice (not bottled) for the best flavor, though either will work. Add lemon zest for even more zing.
• Spices: This easy hollandaise sauce recipe relies on sea salt (or kosher salt), black pepper, and a pinch of cayenne pepper (optional).

How to Make Hollandaise Sauce?

There are just three steps to follow to make this delicious, easy hollandaise sauce recipe.

Step 1: Prepare the Ingredients

First, separate the egg yolks from the whites and juice the lemon.

It can be a good idea to allow the eggs to come down to room temperature for 15-20 minutes before continuing with the recipe. This will help ensure that the eggs’ coldness doesn’t impact the butter when blending.

Then transfer the white wine vinegar to a small saucepan. Heat it over medium-low heat until it reduces by half.

At the same time, melt the butter in a separate small pan until it begins to bubble. Then scoop off and remove any white foam.

It’s important to move to step two immediately after heating the butter. If you allow it to cool, you risk the emulsification not working properly. The melted butter needs to be HOT.

Step 2: Blend the Hollandaise Sauce

You can do this step using either a food processor/blender with a pouring spout or an immersion blender.

Place the egg yolks, lemon juice, reduced vinegar, and cayenne pepper in your food processor or a tall immersion blender cup (or jar).

If you’re using an immersion blender, ensure it’s touching the bottom of the container and turn it on. Allow the blender to run while very slowly pouring in the melted butter.

A thick, creamy-looking, smooth sauce will start to emulsify near the blades. If using an immersion blender, slowly pull the blender up towards the top of the mixture as it emulsifiers. That way you can ensure it is fully emulsified and rich and creamy.

Step 3: Taste and Enjoy

Finally, the homemade hollandaise soup can now be seasoned with salt and black pepper to taste, and enjoy!

How to Fix Broken Hollandaise Sauce?

Like mayonnaise, the biggest issue you can have when making homemade Hollandaise is that the emulsification might break. Luckily, there are several ways to avoid and/or fix this issue.

• Temperature control: This sauce is reliant on temperature control. For this easy Hollandaise sauce, I melt the butter until it bubbles. In this way, it is warm when adding it to the blender. If the butter cools down too much, the sauce may not emulsify.
• Add more egg: Keep the blender running and add an extra whisked egg yolk. Allow it to blend until it emulsifies and becomes creamy.
• Use hot water: And by hot, I mean boiling/just below boiling. I like to whisk a tablespoon of hot water with a couple of tablespoons of the broken sauce until emulsified. Then allow that to steam into the sauce while blending and emulsified. Alternatively, you can drizzle the water directly into the blender, one teaspoon at a time.

Ways to Use Hollandaise Sauce

While this may be the classic eggs benedict sauce, there are plenty of ways to enjoy this creamy sauce.

• To make Eggs Benedict (English muffins with bacon or smoked salmon and poached eggs, topped with the sauce)
• Over asparagus, artichokes, broccoli, + other grilled/roasted/steamed vegetables
• Spoon over poached eggs.
• With sweet potato rosti, hash browns, or sweet potato hash.
• Over a baked potato or boiled new potatoes.
• Serve baked, poached, and smoked salmon with this blender hollandaise sauce.
• With other seafood like crab, scallops, white fish, and more.
• Serve over steak or chicken.
• Enjoy with savory “eggy bread” (French toast).

It also makes for a great holiday sauce, perfect for impressing at a Thanksgiving or Christmas brunch or for a quick holiday snack.

How to Store and Reheat Hollandaise Sauce

Store: I prefer to enjoy this blender hollandaise sauce fresh for the best flavor and consistency as it doesn’t store or reheat particularly well. However, if needed, you can store any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for 1-2 days.

While the sauce doesn’t store particularly well, you can keep it warm for up to an hour over a double boiler with hot (not boiling) water.

Freeze: Technically, you can freeze hollandaise sauce for up to a month. But I haven’t tried and don’t really recommend it. Allow it to thaw in the refrigerator before reheating it.

Reheat: You have to be careful when reheating Hollandaise. You don’t want to cook the eggs within the sauce.

It’s best to be gentle when reheating it. You can do so in a small saucepan on the stovetop over low heat. Add a little more melted butter if necessary to re-emulsify. Alternatively, set the sauce container in a bowl of warm water (not hot). Allow it to sit for 15-20 minutes, swap out the water and repeat until the sauce is warm.

FAQs

More Homemade Sauce Recipes

• Garlic Alfredo Sauce
• Lemon Tahini Sauce
• Spicy Honey Sauce
• Alabama White BBQ Sauce
• Buffalo Wing Sauce Recipe

If you try this quick and easy hollandaise sauce recipe, I’d love to hear your thoughts/questions below. Also, I’d appreciate a recipe card rating below, and feel free to tag me in your recipe recreations on Instagram @Alphafoodie!