I’m starting this thread so as not to hijack the poll thread.
A couple of weeks ago I made biscuits and gravy for breakfast. We didn’t have any sausage, so made bacon gravy. I apologised to the SO, but she said ‘That’s OK. I prefer bacon gravy.’
Some of you (you and I know who you are) are going :eek: For many, the only breakfast gravy is sausage gravy. Any other kind is heretical. I prefer sausage gravy over bacon gravy, but I’m flexible. Crazy Otto’s, where I used to live, used to make gravy with sausage and bacon. And bits of ham. Probably the best biscuits and gravy I’ve had.
Are you a sausage purist? Have you had bacon gravy? Have you had gravy made from two or more meats?
Bacon gravy might be good, depending on the bacon. I’d have to know what I was getting up front though–I like my biscuit gravy nice and peppery, and it’s an unpleasant shock to find something else going on with it. Cracker Barrel, if I’m not mistaken, makes their biscuit gravy w/ ham (and doesn’t clearly label it as such)–I ordered it expecting sausage gravy, and have ever been not-a-fan since.
Sausage, but if the sausage is really lean and I’m not getting enough grease out of it I will suplement with bacon grease. You can’t use very much though because the smoke flavor can be overpowering and sour/bitter tasting.
Guess y’all have never been down our way, but growing up the only breakfast gravy I ever knew was red-eye gravy. I was in my 20’s, I think, before I ever saw the type of gravy you’re describing, which we call “saw mill gravy.”
If it’s made with strong black coffee and excellent country ham, red-eye gravy on grits is heaven on a plate!
As mentioned in the other thread, I make sausage+bacon gravy, because one really can’t have enough fat in one dish. I cut up the bacon and saute it first, then brown the sausage in the bacon fat, then add the flour to the fat in the pan. The cooked bacon goes back in after the dairy and spices have been added, but before the butter.
It wouldn’t have occurred to me that you could make bacon gravy, without any other meat. Sure, bacon has plenty of grease, but what about all the non-grease portion of the meat juices? I’d have thought those were essential to gravy-making.
Now, making sausage gravy and then adding bacon (or, for that matter, ham) to it sounds to me like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
And as an aside, I’m a Northerner, so absent any context, my mental association for “gravy” is the brown stuff (for instance, that’s what you’d put on top of mashed potatoes). But if we’re specifying breakfast, that’s obviously not what’s meant.
I make bacon gravy for pork chops sometimes. I haven’t tried it for breakfast, I prefer the bacon straight. But nothing wrong with using the bacon grease for the sausage gravy. I usually brown the sausage in some olive oil, for the added flavor, and I believe it helps draw more fat out of the sausage. But I might be deluding myself there, I’ve never actually measured it, and obviously adding fat gives you more fat. I don’t think I’d like the bacon mixed with the sausage in breakfast gravy, but I’m not fond of most bacon combos. I prefer my bacon straight, thick, and plentiful. I don’t know why they only sell the single serving size of the packaged bacon at the grocery store.
Sausage gravy is frequently put on hash browns for breakfast, or toast, as well as biscuits. And I usually make cream gravy for some menus. For instance, when I make chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes, I make cream/country gravy, rather than brown gravy.
I’m neither a sausage nor biscuit guy at breakfast.
Red eye gravy is good. Called “Boo Eye Gravy” by my uncle Bill when he was an infant and something I can’t repeat by Mrs. Plant v.3.0.
Chronos, my experience with Southern gravy is oil or fat that is generally thickened with something flour like and seasoning from meat. “Drippings” have both.
I’ve made gravy with olive oil or butter, flour and bullion.
Just to be clear, when I say “bacon gravy” I mean gravy made from bacon grease, not gravy with chunks of bacon in it. The cooked bacon is eaten separately. But yeah, bacon gravy? Delicious!
Anyway, sausage doesn’t produce enough grease on its own for premium gravy. Even when I’m making sausage gravy, I’m going to cook some bacon too, for the grease.
