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• roux
  roux

  noun

  a cooked mixture of butter or other fat and flour used to thicken sauces, soups, etc.
• Roux
  Roux

  French bacteriologist who assisted Louis Pasteur on most of his major discoveries. Later, working with Alexandre Yersin, he showed that the symptoms of diphtheria are caused by a lethal toxin produced by the diphtheria bacillus. Roux carried out early work on the rabies vaccine and directed the first tests of the diphtheria antitoxin.

roux

American  

[roo] / ru /

noun

1. a cooked mixture of butter or other fat and flour used to thicken sauces, soups, etc.

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roux British  

/ ruː /

noun

1. a mixture of equal amounts of fat and flour, heated, blended, and used as a basis for sauces

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Roux Scientific  

/ ro̅o̅ /

1. French bacteriologist who assisted Louis Pasteur on most of his major discoveries. Later, working with Alexandre Yersin, he showed that the symptoms of diphtheria are caused by a lethal toxin produced by the diphtheria bacillus. Roux carried out early work on the rabies vaccine and directed the first tests of the diphtheria antitoxin.

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Etymology

Origin of roux

1805–15; < French ( beurre ) roux brown (butter) < Latin russus red-brown, red-haired, akin to ruber red ¹

Explanation

A roux is the base of many sauces, made by combining and cooking flour with some kind of fat. If you're making a Cajun recipe, your roux might be a mixture of flour and bacon fat. Cheese sauces, gravies, and staples of French cuisine like Béchamel sauce all begin as a roux. For most roux, you start by heating butter, oil, or another fat in a pan, then add flour and cook it while stirring or whisking until it's completely incorporated and there's no lingering taste of raw flour. Other ingredients, like milk, cream, cheese, or water, are added slowly to the roux. In French, roux means both "browned butter" and "reddish-brown."

Example Sentences

Doesn’t matter if it’s caramel, some sort of roux or queso, I’m always hunched over a hot pot stirring my wrist off, testing and adding until it tastes perfect.

From Seattle Times • May 14, 2024

Having extra browned flour on hand is always a good idea in case you want to make a bit more roux at any point.

From Salon • May 18, 2023

My version hangs onto many elements of a more traditional wild rice soup — the vegetables, the roux, the creaminess — but relies on mushrooms and cashew cream in place of dairy and animal products.

From Washington Post • Mar. 20, 2023

Food serves as the roux of the podcast, while the impact the establishments have had on their communities and adds the shrimp, sausage and potatoes.

From Seattle Times • Mar. 16, 2023

Strain the liquor from the braising pot, season to taste, and if necessary thicken with a little brown roux; serve it with the chicken as sauce.

From The Century Cook Book by Ronald, Mary