Theresa wants to make a white sauce but doesn’t have any butter.

A white sauce has three basic ingredients: butter, flour, and milk. The butter is melted over low heat and the flour is stirred in and cooked for 3 - 5 minutes to eliminate the raw flour taste. Then the milk is stirred in and the mixture is cooked until it thickens.

But these ingredients aren’t required to make a sauce. In fact any oil or fat can be substituted for the butter, so the short answer to Theresa’s question is that she can use vegetable or canola oil as a one-for-one substitution. This substitution will affect the flavor but if she’s adding other ingredients to the white sauce then the difference might not be noticeable.

Chef Kevin