Dishes and Dust Bunnies

Good Home Cooking and Creative Homemaking on a Budget

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by Michelle Varga

Easy Cheese Sauce

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This easy cheese sauce recipe is such an easy way to dress up and push your meal just over the edge of awesomeness!

Easy Cheese Sauce

Seriously, cheese goes with everything.

With that in mind, this is a cheesy household. In fact, we are extremely cheesy here. 🙂

My husband and especially my son love cheese with pretty much any kind of meal! I obviously love it as well!

I mean, look at that…

Easy Cheese Sauce

This recipe for easy cheese sauce is so simple and you can use it in lots of different ways.

This goes great drizzled over steamed veggies like broccoli and you can also use it as a cheese for nachos!

You can also use this cheese sauce with macaroni noodles to create your own simple homemade macaroni and cheese. 🙂

Easy Cheese Sauce

This easy cheese sauce recipe starts out as a basic roux using all-purpose flour and butter. Some seasonings like garlic powder, salt and pepper, a pinch of cayenne and some paprika give the cheese sauce a nice little zing.

I used extra sharp aged cheddar cheese in this recipe but you could adapt this to use with any kind of cheese that you prefer for a different flavour.

This cheese sauce is so good I must warn you:

You may need to make double!

I hope you enjoy this recipe and please let me know how it turns out for you!

Easy Cheese Sauce

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Easy Cheese Sauce

  • Author:
  • Yield: Makes about 1 1/2 cups
  • Category: Sauce
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Ingredients

  • 3 tbsp all purpose flour
  • 3 tbsp butter
  • Pinch of cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • Pinch of pepper
  • 1/2 tsp paprika
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 1/4 cups extra sharp aged cheddar cheese, shredded

Instructions

  1. In a sauce pot on medium heat, melt the butter.
  2. While the butter is melting, in a small dish combine the flour with the spices and seasonings.
  3. Once the butter is melted, heat still on medium, add the flour mixture while whisking quickly for about 1 – 2 minutes.
  4. Pour the milk into the pot and turn the heat up to high to bring to a boil.
  5. Quickly whisk while it's coming to a boil. The sauce will thicken up fast.
  6. Once the sauce thickens up add the cheese to the pot and turn the heat down to LOW.
  7. Use the whisk to combine the cheese sauce and turn off the heat.
  8. Serve over steamed broccoli or use in cooking as desired.

I'd love to hear from you so please feel free to leave a comment in the comment section below! 🙂

 

  • Robin Rue

    We put cheese sauce on everything! I love it when things are super yummy AND delicious like this.

  • Brandi_B

    I bet my kids would devour that broccoli! I’m going to have to try out your recipe and see if it is a winner here.

  • Mistee Dawn

    Yum! A good cheese sauce can make everything taste better. And this one looks amazing.

  • Jeanette

    I am not the cheese fan in our family, but my hubby and son would be all over this. I could use this on just about anything and my boys would actually eat more!

  • Tracy Iglesias

    Yep, I would just plain make double the amount I needed right from the start, and crumble some bacon in that bad boy and we will really have a party! LOL 🙂

    Tracy @ Ascending Butterfly

  • Sandy Segur

    I love how the orange color of the cheese sauce compared to the broccoli. It makes it eye appealing. Which always gets me to want to take a bite.

  • Alli Smith

    A little cheese sauce makes all veggies taste better. I like the addition of cayenne pepper! I like it spicy.

  • Stacie @ Divine Lifestyle

    Yum! I make broccoli and cheese all the time. I also like to put cheese sauce over carrots, too. It’s divine.

  • That looks so good. Definitely want to try this recipe, can’t remember the last time I had a good cheese sauce at home.

  • Betsy Barnes

    I am always searching for a good, easy cheese sauce recipe. This one looks really good, going to give it a try 🙂

  • Emily

    I love the idea of adding the cayanne pepper for a bit of a flavor punch. Sounds so good!

  • Mykidsguide

    I love cheese and your sauce looks absolutely delicious! I wouldn’t mind adding cayenne pepper as Iwould love the sauce with a little kick.

  • Ashleigh Thomas

    Ive never day had cheese on my broc. Ill have to try it.

  • rika agustini

    i have to try this.. my kids are going to love the recipe.. they love cheese!

  • ronley

    Thanks for this. Will try this for our next gathering.

  • April Mims

    We love cheese on almost anything (and any kind of cheese). I’m sure my family would love this recipe.

  • Eileen Mendoza Loya

    My family is all about cheese! They would surely love this new cheese sauce recipe! Now I am thinking what to pair it with? As a topping for baked potatoes probably and some grilled chops. Yum!

    • That sounds like a great way to serve the cheese sauce! My mouth is watering just thinking of it!

  • Megan Elford

    I’ve been looking for a great cheese sauce recipe. I can’t wait to try this one, it looks perfect!

  • Michele E Dickerson

    Yum! I love Cheese Sauce specially on my broccoli. This recipe will be a hit for my family. Can’t wait to try it out!

  • мѕ.αℓчѕѕα

    Yum! I love cheese sauce. This recipe looks easy enough to try for lunch! Thank you for sharing.

  • WEMAKE7

    Mmmm we all love cheese here as well. We can never keep enough in the house. Thanks for the recipe.

  • chubskulit

    Wow, that looks delicious! We love brocolli but we have never tried preparing it this way.

  • Lynn Dee

    I’ve been wanting to recreate the broccoli with cheese that I had at the restaurant. I’ve finally found the cheese recipe that I want. 🙂 Can’t wait to make it!

  • I love cheese on everything!! That broccoli looks amazing!!

  • My boys are not huge brocolie fans…unless it’s smothered in cheese. Thank you for sharing this recipe so I now know how to make it at home 😀

  • Irish Chik

    Oh yummy! This reminds me of a similar recipe my mother used to make when I was younger. She was always so good about stretching our groceries and getting the most use out of them for the least amount of money and making cheese sauce was one way to stretch the block of cheese.

  • mail4rosey

    You just found a way to make broccoli look good for the kids. 😉 That cheese sauce looks delicious.

  • TheNewClassy

    Thanks for showing me how to make this! I love cheese sauces, especially on broccoli or tortilla chips. They are really super yummy!

  • Erin Shebish

    I need this in my life! It looks so good. And probably like it would convince my 3 year old to eat more green. Yes!

  • Kori

    You definitely had me at cheese. I can’t get enough, it seems. Will have to make this soon.

  • This sounds really easy, unfortunately my children don’t like cheese on their green veggies. They might go for this on a potato with some bacon.

  • My brother used to only can eat broccoli with cheese on it. My mom needed this recipe growing up!

  • Your photo makes me want to dive right in! I used to love cheese sauce on everything when I was little! Yours looks delicious!

  • Shirgie Scf

    I soooo love cheese, so I will definitely love this too. I think this is good for sandwich. What do you think?

  • This sounds delicious. I know that I would have to make a double batch. My mom used to put cheese on our broccoli growing up.

  • Angie Kanellopoulos

    I am all about cheese and this recipe seriously just brought me back to my younger years growing up! My mom made this all the time! Hmm now that I think of it I do have chesse and broc in my fridge.. LOL

  • CourtneyLynne Storms

    Ahhhhh cheese is like the best thing ever!!!! I so need to make some of this cheese sauce. Sounds pretty delicious

  • That looks amazing! I’d put cheese on ALL THE THINGS! But seriously… cheese is awesome on almost anything!

  • Karen

    I never made cheese sauce before but took a gamble by making it to go along with broccoli as an Easter dinner side dish. I’m happy to report that this gamble really paid off! It was SO good and the texture was perfect. The family loved it! Thanks for sharing.

    • Hi Karen!
      That’s so awesome! I’m so pleased to hear that everyone enjoyed it!

      Thanks so much for trying the recipe, and glad you made the gamble! 😀

      Michelle

  • Tiffany

    How can I use it for mac and cheese, I’ve never made mac and cheese this way

    • Hi there Tiffany!

      To use this with mac and cheese, I just boil a separate pot of water at the same time and cook some macaroni pasta. Once the pasta is ready, I drain it and combine it with the cheese sauce – easy peasy! 😀

      Hope this helps! Enjoy! 😀

      Michelle