Savory Cheese Soufflé Recipe

Breaking Down Soufflé (Without a Tragic Soufflump)

A soufflé is a fundamentally simple thing that leverages the power of eggs to achieve impressive results.

All classic soufflés, sweet and savory, start with a base that provides richness and structure. In savory soufflés, like the cheese soufflé I'm demonstrating here, the base is a thick béchamel sauce, usually calling for about three tablespoons flour per cup of milk (though my recipe bumps this up to three-and-a-half tablespoons for just a slightly thicker and more sturdy result).

Soufflé Ingredient Ratios (Soufflatios)

Add too much more flour, for example, and your soufflé is going to start to resemble a cake; too little and it'll be too thin to hold its shape, spilling up and over the sides of its container.

Soufflé Oven Temperatures (Is It Getting Soufflhot in Here?)

The oven temperature has a couple important effects on a soufflé.

First, the heat of the oven is a critical "ingredient" for getting a soufflé to rise; it's what causes gases to expand inside all those trapped air bubbles and what converts moisture in the soufflé batter to steam. The heat also sets the proteins in the egg yolks and whites, allowing the soufflé to keep some of its height after cooling.

A Note on Stomping (Stouflomping?) and Opening the Oven Door

Here's a bit of kitchen wisdom that needs to die with all the other kitchen wisdom that's been debunked in recent years: That old commandment not to open the oven door when cooking a soufflé, not to stomp in the kitchen, not to exhale too

To prove it, I cooked two soufflés. One I left undisturbed for the duration of its cooking.

Beating the Whites (Soufflex Those Muscles)

Brace yourselves: This is the section where I'm going to tell you the one thing you don't want to hear, which is that for the best soufflé, you'll likely get better results if you beat the whites by hand.

You don't have to, but it's the one part of the process where you really can take more complete control if you use your own horsepower instead of outsourcing it to a motor. (Obviously, if you can't beat the whites by hand for physical reasons, it's totally fine to use an electric mixer; you will still succeed.) I came to understand the advantages of hand-beating the whites while running my first test batches, during which I used a stand mixer.

Say Cheese! (I Got Nothing for This One, so Sou Me)

One final consideration for your savory cheese soufflé: the cheese.

You want a good melter with a low water content. That means a semifirm cheese that can be grated into shreds, like Gruyère or cheddar.