Is Dry Milk Powder as stable as Evaporated in cheese sauce?

I have a super stable cheese sauce that contains Evaporated Milk, but I see prices getting sky high. Years ago I used to use 50/50 dry milk and water to replace cream to good effect in sauces so I am pretty sure that I can get the creaminess that I want with dry milk. I know I suffer a bit on taste but my cheese should bury the defect. Will it be heat stable?

What if I move to bakers dry milk? 

Does anyone want to share their fantasticly stable  cheese sauce? Mine is light cream, evaporated milk, cream cheese, jack, sharp tillamook.

 Very bad choice, it can not take heat without burning and breaking. I am doing cook to order mac and cheese and  with my sauce I can reheat on the super hot stove top fast with no burn and no breaking. But I dont want to pay the $1 for 12 oz of evaporated milk if I can avoid it, that adds up fast. Cheese sauce making is very chemically complex, so maybe I am stuck, but I hope not. I figured out my recipe by watching a video from S'Mac in NYC, where they do the same skillet to order reheat of the sauce and call the dish "made to order". 

Quote:

Originally Posted by chefedb 

I have made it with dry, it never broke but the taste was off as was the mouth feel as most of the powders do not have fat in them. I prefer a combo of milk and cream, not 1/2 and 1/2 because it is really 2/3  1/3. the flavor and consistancy much better. If I were working line to order I would use a house made, premade bechamel for speed purposes and consistancy all the time.

Most people do, which is why most of the time you see Mac and Cheese that takes a long time to produce and is not very cheesy. There is zero flour thickener in my sauce and it is going to stay that way, I like that I get a fantastic product and can start with cold mac and cold cheese sauce and have the dish done in five minutes with never a burn and never a separation. 

So you never tried it with whole dry milk I take it? 

Quote:

Originally Posted by chefedb 

No only place  I even used skim dry was whenI was teaching school in a school program in NY that we were given it as part of government surplus , as was the cheese. Never used whole dry milk. Now I do itwith lubster and portabello so I don't use anything cept heavy cream. For $29.95 I can't conscience dry milk or even regular milk.

I used a lot of dry milk while cooking for the Army, and it worked rather well a lot of the time. I understand that in the business saying that I might want to use dry milk in a recipe in order to solve a problem at a reasonable cost is about like saying that I am thinking about using Spam in a recipe, but if it works it works. This is a secret recipe sauce, nobody I sell to is going to know what is in it, there is no down side to using a currently out of favor ingredient. My main need here is to get the sauce chemistry right, and wondering if  can use dry milk instead of evaporated milk to do it, and if so which of the three choice (instant non-fat, whole, bakers) would be my best bet.  Flavor wise I doubt that the step down to dry milk will matter, as percentage wise it is a minor part of the sauce. 

I am sucking up the cost of canned evap milk, because using it is easier than trying to use powder. I have my people put 1/2 pound of cream cheese in a pan with 2 cups cream and one can evap milk. Heat. Add cheese and a squirt of water and presto, fantastic cheese sauce every time. I am selling a 2.25 cup portion for $7, with fantastic success.