Charred Asparagus With Miso Béarnaise Sauce Recipe (2024)

Recipes By Ingredients
French
Vegetarian Sides
Stovetop Vegetables

A touch of miso and a screaming-hot cast iron pan spruce up these classic steakhouse accoutrements.

Sasha Marx

Senior Culinary Editor

Sasha is a senior culinary editor at Serious Eats. He has over a decade of professional cooking experience, having worked his way up through a number of highly regarded and award-winning restaurant kitchens, followed by years spent in test kitchens for food publications.

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Updated March 11, 2021

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Why It Works

A small amount of miso lends savory depth to classic béarnaise sauce that complements the grassiness of spring asparagus.
Using an immersion blender to blend the béarnaise creates a strong emulsion.
Cooking asparagus most of the way in a dry cast iron pan cuts down on unwanted smoke in the kitchen. A finishing addition of oil quickly blisters the spears and helps seasoning stick to them.

For an easy steak dinner side dish, char asparagus in the time it takes for your rib-eye to rest. Drizzle them both with a jazzed-up béarnaise that gets an umami boost from white miso. Why drop big bucks at a stuffy steakhouse when you can live large at home? No jacket required.

Asparagus Goes Deluxe With Miso Béarnaise

Recipe Details

Charred Asparagus With Miso Béarnaise Sauce Recipe

Active25 mins

Ingredients

1/2 cup (120ml) drywhite wine
1/4 cup (60ml)white wine vinegar
1 large shallot (30g), sliced thin
3 sprigs tarragon, leaves finely minced, stems reserved separately
1/2 teaspoon (2g) whole black peppercorns
2 large egg yolks (36g)
1 tablespoon (20g) whitemiso
12 tablespoons (168g)unsalted butter
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 pound (450g) asparagus, woody ends trimmed
1 tablespoon (15ml) vegetable oil, divided

Directions

In a small saucepan, combine wine, vinegar, shallots, tarragon stems, and black peppercorns, and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Adjust heat to maintain a gentle simmer and cook until reduced to about 1 1/2 tablespoons of liquid, 10 to 12 minutes. Carefully strain liquid through a fine-mesh strainer into a small bowl, pressing on the solids with the back of a spoon to extract as much liquid as possible. Let mixture cool slightly.
In a tall-sided cup that barely fits the head of an immersion blender, combine egg yolks, miso, and the wine-vinegar reduction. Using an immersion blender. Blend mixture until well-combined, about 30 seconds.
Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, melt butter over high heat, swirling constantly, until foaming subsides. Transfer butter to a 1-cup liquid measuring cup. Heat a large cast iron skillet over high heat.
Place head of immersion blender into the bottom of the cup and turn it on. With the blender constantly running, slowly pour hot butter into cup in a thin and steady stream. Continue blending, raising and lowering blender head slightly to fully emulsify butter with the egg yolk mixture. Sauce should be thick and creamy, able to coat a spoon but still flow off of it. If it is too thick, whisk in a small amount of water to thin it out. Stir in minced tarragon and season to taste with salt. Transfer to a small lidded pot and keep in a warm place for up to 1 hour before serving. Béarnaise cannot be cooled and reheated.
Add half of the asparagus to the preheated cast iron skillet and arrange in a single layer. Cook, turning occasionally, until spears are lightly charred all over and just cooked through, 4 to 6 minutes for thin spears, 5 to 8 minutes for thick spears. Carefully add half of the vegetable oil to the skillet, toss to coat asparagus with oil, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Transfer asparagus to a warmed serving plate. Repeat with remaining asparagus and vegetable oil. Serve immediately, passing béarnaise sauce at the table.

Special equipment

Immersion blender, Cast iron skillet

Make-Ahead and Storage

This dish is best enjoyed immediately. The béarnaise sauce can be made and kept warm for up to 1 hour before serving.

This Recipe Appears In

Asparagus Goes Deluxe With Miso Béarnaise

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
413	Calories
40g	Fat
7g	Carbs
5g	Protein

Show Full Nutrition Label

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 4
Amount per serving
Calories	413
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 40g	52%
Saturated Fat 22g	112%
Cholesterol 188mg	63%
Sodium 290mg	13%
Total Carbohydrate 7g	3%
Dietary Fiber 3g	9%
Total Sugars 2g
Protein 5g
Vitamin C 9mg	45%
Calcium 59mg	5%
Iron 2mg	9%
Potassium 305mg	6%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

Charred Asparagus With Miso Béarnaise Sauce Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What's the difference between béarnaise and hollandaise sauce? ›

It is regarded as a "child" of hollandaise sauce. The difference is only in the flavoring: béarnaise uses shallot, black pepper, and tarragon, while hollandaise uses white pepper or a pinch of cayenne. The sauce's name derives from the province of Béarn, France.

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How do you make béarnaise thicker? ›

Lower the temperature to 60 ºC and add the egg yolks while whisking. The egg yolks will thicken the sauce even more. When your sauce is creamy and delicious, you can season it with salt and chopped tarragon. Depending on how thick you want your béarnaise, you can add a little water to dilute it.

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Why is bearnaise sauce so good? ›

Flavored with tarragon, shallots, and white wine vinegar, bearnaise sauce somehow adds both creamy decadence and a pleasant acidity to cut through the fat of the beef and butter. I've included it in the family recipes section of this book/website, because for me it is closely associated with my father.

Tell Me More ›

What do you eat bearnaise sauce with? ›

Béarnaise sauce is commonly paired with grilled fish or steak, but it's just as delicious on roasted vegetables or eggs Benedict. Spoon this silky, herby sauce over roasted asparagus, steamed broccoli, or grilled mushrooms for a sophisticated dinner party side.

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How do you keep bearnaise sauce from splitting? ›

The bearnaise should be served warm, not hot - if it gets too hot, it will separate. If you're brave, you can heat it very carefully when it's done - but be careful it doesn't get too hot! The hob should be on no higher than level 2 - and you'll need to whisk continuously.

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What ingredients are in bearnaise sauce? ›

What Is Béarnaise? Béarnaise is a fat-in-water emulsion—in this case, butter emulsified into a reduction of white wine and vinegar flavored with shallots, tarragon, and chervil, all bound and thickened with egg yolks. It's technically a derivative of hollandaise sauce, one of the five French mother sauces.

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What makes bearnaise sauce break? ›

Heat can cook the egg yolk and break the emulsion as could mixing the ingredients in the wrong order. We can call this “breaking” curdling. Straining and whisking in a little warm egg yolk might re-emulsify. Whisking or blending alone may help for sauces that have been sitting for awhile.

Which is better béarnaise or hollandaise? ›

But each one is typically used to flavor different dishes and ingredients. For example, hollandaise is often added to eggs Benedict and steamed asparagus, and it goes exceptionally well with poached fish. Béarnaise, on the other hand, is most often served with grilled meat such as steaks.

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Which is better on steak hollandaise or béarnaise? ›

Béarnaise Sauce is considered by many to be one of the finest sauces to serve with steaks. A variation of Hollandaise sauce, one of the 5 “mother sauces” in classical French cookery, it's notoriously difficult to make by hand.

Can you substitute bearnaise sauce for hollandaise sauce? ›

There are a lot of scrumptious alternatives to hollandaise sauce. Béarnaise Sauce and Mock Hollandaise Sauce are great substitutes.

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