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Written by
Gregory Lewis McNamee
Fact-checked by
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
hollandaise sauce, one of the classic sauces of French cooking, made of butter, egg yolks, lemon juice, and pepper and usually served on fish, eggs, or vegetables.
Although its French name means “from Holland,” hollandaise sauce probably traces its origins to the northern French region of Normandy, where it was first called sauce Isigny, named after the dairy-producing Calvados town of Isigny-sur-Mer. Because the region was a stronghold of Protestant Huguenots who fled to Holland to escape persecution, the recipe may have reentered France from the latter nation, giving rise to its name.
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The first known recipe for hollandaise sauce called for vinegar, while one published in 1758, when the sauce was known to cooks outside the region, used bouillon and flour but no eggs. The use of eggs as an emulsifier was not strictly necessary, given those other ingredients.
The sauce in its present form was well established in France by the early 19th century and was introduced elsewhere soon after. Delmonico’s used hollandaise sauce on eggs Benedict, a dish invented at the legendary New York restaurant, as early as 1860. By the early 20th century, thanks to its liberal use by the restaurateur and cookbook author Auguste Escoffier, who called it one of five “mother sauces” in French cuisine, hollandaise sauce was a standard feature on menus. It was, and remains, typically paired with asparagus, shellfish, or poached salmon and as the topping of eggs Benedict.
Hollandaise and béarnaise sauce are similar. Hollandaise sauce calls for the addition of very soft butter whisked into egg yolks and lemon juice that are whisked and cooked slowly together over low heat, while béarnaise sauce uses vinegar and wine (instead of lemon juice), tarragon, and shallots with the egg yolks and the butter is usually clarified first. Because it is all too easy to overcook egg yolks to an unwanted firmness rather than the light and airy quality it should have, hollandaise sauce is often considered a challenge for home cooks, but with practice the dish becomes less daunting.
