My grandmother’s recipe for Hollandaise sauce dates back to the early 1960s. Although it is not significantly different from other recipes, it is nonetheless worth considering. Serve alongside fish or sautéed veggies.
| Prep Time: | 5 mins |
| Cook Time: | 10 mins |
| Total Time: | 15 mins |
| Servings: | 4 |
| Yield: | 2/3 cup |
Ingredients
- 2 large egg yolks
- ¼ cup butter, melted
- ¼ cup boiling water
- 1 ½ tablespoons lemon juice
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper
Instructions
- Whisk egg yolks lightly in the top of a double boiler over simmering water. Slowly whisk in melted butter, then gradually whisk in boiling water. Cook, stirring, until thickened. Remove the double boiler top from the base.
- Gradually whisk in lemon juice. Season with salt and cayenne. Cover and keep hot over warm water until serving.
Reviews
We loved this hollandaise! So easy, didn’t split and delicious!!
It will become my go to sauce from now on
I make this all the time. I like the water and less butter option.
I found the sauce to be too thin, but that could be human error on my part.
This Hollandaise sauce is amazing. I personally used 1 Tbls of lemon juice since I used the lemon juice from a jar. I previously made a hollandaise sauce in a blender and was highly disappointed so I was afraid to try this one. and I am pleased to say it exceeded my expectations and tasted much better then any hollandaise sauce I’ve ever had. This is going to go into the family cookbook! Thank you for sharing this amazing recipe. ??
I thought this recipe was great! Super easy, flavorful, smooth and was really wonderful. I whisked the egg yolks before placing them over the boiling water, only because I find that sometimes there are just one too many things happening at the same time to make this smooth. Honestly though, I think it would have been perfectly fine doing just as Grandma said.
So easy and yummy! My family’s favorite breakfast. Thank you for sharing!
how it’s done, classic and simple
Very simple recipe and I used a bowl on top of a little saucepan since I didn’t have a double boiler. Also used only 1 tsp of lemon juice and it was perfect. You can add more cayenne pepper to your taste. Thanks for this great recipe for my first time making this ever!
Did not like this version of Hollandaise. Adding water made it unstable. Too much lemon for my taste. I was expecting a creamier and smother product.
Putting egg yolks first into the double boiler and beating them on their own is a recipe for scrambled eggs rather than hollandaise. Also, I found that this ended up tasting really weak and too lemony. The hollandaise in the picture looks completely different from what I made. Definitely needed more egg yolks and no water. The water just makes it taste…watery.
I ended up with scrambled eggs.
I love hollandaise sauce, but this came out horrible. We followed the recipe exactly, but it came out clumpy, watery and way too sour. Even if there was flavor there, the lemon killed it.
I really like this technique and I think doing it this way saved me. I had some frozen egg yolks left over from making meringue so I quadrupled the recipe. I think the majority of the issues I had were due to the egg yolks being frozen but when I added the butter they curdled and looked like a nasty mess. Rather than throw it away I decided to blend it with a stick blender, and it still looked nasty. Then I added the water because I figured it was just water. Once I added the water and stick blended it, it magically transformed into the perfect Hollandaise. I didn’t end up adding the full amount of water because I think it would have been runny and maybe you want to watch the salt because mine was pretty salty (but that’s preference anyway). It would have been a bit lemony for my taste so I just added a small amount at a time. It is a very forgiving technique and the sauce held much longer than other’s I’ve made. I’m pretty sure the majority of my difficulties came from using frozen egg yolks and quadrupuling the recipe.
I usually use the Knoor brand hollandaise sauce packet but this was just as easy and so much more flavor. I only used 1 1/2 tsp of lemon juice and no cayenne. Served over eggs benedict and even my picky hubs said this was a do over.. I’ll not be buying the packets anymore, this will be my go to recipe.
New favorite! Followed recipe as written and this was so yummy! I’ve only made the blender recipe before & this was much easier to keep warm and tasted so good. Definitely a keeper!
A good, simple and easy hollandaise. I can whip this up quickly for eggs benedict, which is what I wanted it for.
I made hollandaise for the first time using this recipe and it turned out great. For my kids taste they felt it was a little too “lemony” so I reduced that in my next batch, but the consistency is great and I love the pinch of cayenne pepper to it. I absolutely love it served over my sausage and potato hash and an over easy egg 🙂 This will be me go to recipe for hollandaise!
Not sure what happened…followed the recipe exactly and it never thickened and did not taste good. There was no flavor at all to the sauce and it was very thin. 🙁
I don’t believe I had ever had H sauce previously but ran across it discussed on a website and decided I wanted to try it. I just got done making it and it was wonderful. I made it exact to the recipe – pinch of Cayenne included and I loved it. It will be served with Brussels Sprouts shortly. THANKS!
It was realy good!!