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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

See Examples For:

roux Roux

Sprinkle flour into the pot and stir a few minutes to make a light roux.

From Salon ● Nov. 7, 2024

Rather boringly brown in presentation, the gumbo gets velvety from a luxe roux, echoing smoke, faint heat and stages of flavor, with all the tastes and texture of the sausage incorporated through.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 26, 2023

You'll only need about a cup of roux in this recipe, so you can freeze leftover roux in an airtight container to use later.

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

Amylum, or amulum which hereafter will occur frequently in the original does not cover the ground as well as the French term roux.

From Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome by Vehling, Joseph Dommers

La Roux told An that West whispered to her, “I bet you think I just put women back about 10 years.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 11, 2026

Le Roux and team highlight the potential for a swing back toward large caps because institutional investors tend to be “value-driven and slow-moving,” so overweighting the cheaper small cap index was unavoidable.

From MarketWatch ● May 5, 2026

The company’s chief operating officer, Pol Le Roux, said it had actually been 30 years.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 26, 2026

"In 10 years from now, I expect this to be a substantial part of the business," Le Roux said.

From Barron's ● Apr. 22, 2026

The owner lured Roux away with a shriveled pig’s ear, which is apparently a canine delicacy?

From "From Twinkle, with Love" by Sandhya Menon