How to send authentication header in ASP.Net for set of web request

I am developing ASP.net application which consumes REST services with ASP.Net Web API. I am trying to use Basic authentication for my website. I plan to use it with SSL once I complete Basic authentication.

Currently on Login button click I am sending Auth header using Base64 encoding of username and password as shown below:

        string responseData = string.Empty;                    string authToken = string.Empty;        string loginInstance = url;        // Create request.        HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(loginInstance);        request.Method = "POST";        request.ContentType = "application/json";        request.CookieContainer = new CookieContainer();        String username = txtUserName.Text;        String password = txtPassword.Text;        String encoded = System.Convert.ToBase64String(System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(username +":"+ password));        request.Headers.Add("Authorization", "Basic "+ encoded);        request.ContentLength = 0;        HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();        StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream(), System.Text.Encoding.UTF8);        String resultData = reader.ReadToEnd();        bool result = false;        result = Convert.ToBoolean(resultData);        return result;

I assume I will need to send authentication header to all of those web api requests that needs to be secure and pass through authentciation.

Is there a way to attach authentication header to every request that I send or even to a set of requests?Please note: most of the Web API requests are invoked through JQuery.

Also please let me know if this is not recommended approach of implementation.

Regards,

Abhilash