Hollandaise Without a Double Boiler
Making hollandaise in the microwave is as easy as can be!
We love Hollandaise Sauce here at Taste Buds Kitchen, it goes great on top of Eggs Florentine in our Let’s Brunch adult cooking class, and our teenage chefs really enjoy mastering this classic French mother sauce during challenges in cooking camp.
Hollandaise Sauce is a perfect match for eggs during breakfast and brunch, but is also delicious as a classic combo on top of steamed asparagus or green beans for dinner.
Hollandaise Sauce tends to scare off even the best of the best home cooks due to the sensitive nature of making it and the process of controlling the heat at just the right temperature.
Believe it or not, there is a more foolproof way to make this tasty sauce that does not use a double boiler, takes 5 minutes, and makes it easy enough to whip up for a crowd! This recipe will definitely impress your friends the next time you host brunch!
Hollandaise Sauce Instructions
- Get all of your ingredients measured ahead of time. This is called “mise en place” and is how chefs in restaurants stay organized when they are cooking. Our kitchen tool of choice to bend up the hollandaise is the KitchenAid Cordless Immersion Blender – it is so handy and easy to use with a rechargeable battery so you don’t need to be plugged in to an outlet!
Squeeze your lemon juice through a fine mesh strainer to catch all the seeds. 
For this recipe we will only need the egg yolks, there are many different methods for separating eggs, but we find when doing many eggs at a time, the easiest way is to first crack all your eggs into one bowl.
- Using a clean hand gently scoop out one yolk at a time from the bowl, letting the whites of the egg slip through your fingers. Save those whites so you can whip up some delicious Meringue Cookies!
- Season your egg yolks with cayenne, lemon juice and salt.
- Prepare your butter by melting it in the microwave, in this step you are going to want to move pretty quickly so that the butter does not cool down too much, it is the heat of the butter that will help emulsify and thicken the sauce by cooking the yolks.
- Once your butter is melted, begin blending your egg yolks with the immersion blender, slowly adding in a little melted butter at a time as you blend.
- Move the immersion blender up and down as you are pouring the butter in, since it tends to sit right on top of the sauce. Keep blending until all of the butter is incorporated.
- Serve Hollandaise right away while it is warm! Yum!
Microwave Hollandaise Sauce Recipe
Makes: Serves 4
Ingredients
- 3 egg yokes
- 4 tablespoons lemon juice
- pinch cayenne powder
- pinch salt
- 2/3 cup unsalted butter
Instructions
- Add egg yolks, lemon juice, cayenne, and salt into a large bowl.
- Prepare your butter by melting it in the microwave, in this step you are going to want to move pretty quickly so that the butter does not cool down too much, it is the heat of the butter that will help emulsify and thicken the sauce by cooking the yolks.
- Turn on an immersion blender and begin to pulse the egg yolks, adding the melted butter in a slow stream. Move the immersion blender up and down as you are pouring the butter in, since it tends to sit right on top of the sauce. Keep blending until all of the butter is incorporated. Voila!
- Serve hollandaise sauce right away while it is warm. We love it over a fresh biscuit with a little arugula or spinach and a perfectly poached egg. Sprinkle a little pinch of cayenne powder on top for pretty presentation.