The roux is the only way to make gravy. Flour and water make paste.
“They” sell canned gravy at the supermarket. It is fine. Sprinkle on some fresh chives and the peeps will love it.
To be honest, if you’re doing a blonde roux, I really don’t notice that much a difference between a roux-based gravy and a slurry-based one. If you’re cooking the roux to brown it, though, sure, there’s a difference.
That is why I have a whizz-stick (handheld blender). Smooths out that lumpy gravy and fixes white sauce.
Of course, in the UK I use gravy powder (premixed stock and cornflour) which dissolves in cold water and thickens nicely - ahh Bisto. Failing that, a stock cube and some cornflour. I don’t really like a roux-based gravy. Cornflour has much less taste.
Si
[joe vs the volcano]I have no response to that[/jvtv]
Congratulations!
I was too chickenshit to make my own gravy for Thanksgiving this year (because my mom was way the hell in North Carolina and I really didn’t want to have to call her up in a panic if something went wrong) so I just used a packet. Tasted okay.
Next year (or, hell, at Christmas) I think I’ll try my hand at gravy, provided I have supervision.
When she died, did you put her in a gravy boat and set fire to it?
Congratulations. I’ve never achieved gravy.
The current plan is to find a wife, who can achieve gravy on my behalf.
It’s a wonderful thing, when you find that special someone who can make gravy for you. But, you know, there are always going to be those times when, well, your special someone just won’t be able to make that gravy for you. They might be sick, or away, or just plain not in the mood for gravy. So when that happens, and you are absolutely jonesing for gravy, you know you gotta be in a position to make it yourself. So you hafta learn how, and now is the best time to do so. You’re not always going to go the whole hog, separating the fat, glazing the pan, taking your time - you may use something pre-prepared, cause all you need is a quick gravy fix to leave you satisfied…
But, take it from me, you need to be able to make your own gravy 
Si
Some are born gravy, some achieve gravy and some have gravy thrust upon them.
But most women have the anti sausage gravy gene passed down from previous generations going back to Eve, who said: “Sausage gravy? Are you insane? Here, have some fruit.” You’ll likely have to learn this skill yourself.
My wife has that gene, but I’m proud to say that since I came up with the Ultimate Sausage Gravy, she has actually requested the dish (with biscuits) for New Years Day breakfast! I’m speechless.
Mmm… sausage gravy. Would you share, please?
Sausage gravy: Start with bulk sausage. Brown in a skillet. Keep the grease in the pan, stir in enough flour to absorb the grease and make a roux. Cook the roux for a bit.
Add milk. Heat to a simmer, and stir like crazy to incorporate the roux into the milk.
You can make homemade biscuits, use Bisquik, or my personal favorite: use Pillsbury GRANDS.
I made the BESTEST sausage gravy a couple of weeks ago. I used chorizo as the sausage. Oh. My. GAWD.
And for the milk, I used a can of evaporated milk.
I’m drooling just remembering how good it was!
~VOW
Not really even close to what I make, although chorizo would be an interesting approach.
I’ve hesitated to share this recipe, since it took me so long to come up with it and I want to hog it all to myself for at least a short while. Ah hell, here you are. But be forewarned: you will never order this dish in a restaurant again. Seriously.
Thick, rich, creamy and high in fat, it’s not for the faint of heart.
1 to 1.5 pounds bulk pork breakfast sausage, preferably with sage (such as Jimmy Dean)
½ t0 ¾ pound bacon, sliced across grain in ¼” strips
1-2 TBSP canola or other neutral oil
About ¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
1 cup ½&1/2
Milk
Salt, ground sage, ground fennel and ground red pepper (cayenne, about a pinch) to taste.
2-3 TBSP cold butter, cut into pieces
-
Set a large, heavy-bottomed skillet over medium heat and heat the oil on medium. Add the bacon and sauté until the fat is rendered and bacon is crisp. Remove bacon from the pan, draining off the fat against the side of the pan. Increase the heat to med-hi and add hunks of the sausage to the bacon fat. Brown the sausage, breaking it up with a spatula, until it is loose and no longer pink, approximately 10 minutes. Add ground sage, fennel and black pepper to taste (I usually add in about a tablespoon of each of the first two at this point, and a teaspoon of black pepper and adjust it later, if needed). Add the pinch of cayenne.
-
Reduce the heat to medium. Sprinkle the flour (add more if all the fat is not absorbed) over the sausage (or remove sausage from pan and add the flour directly to the fat) and cook, stirring constantly, until the flour has been absorbed by the fat and has gathered its flavors close, approximately 5 minutes. Do not allow the flour to burn. If you’ve added too much flour for the fat to absorb, add some butter to increase the fat.
-
Reduce heat to med-low. Return the bacon (and sausage, if removed) to the pan. Slowly stir in the ½&1/2 with a whisk, dissolving any flour lumps. Add about a cup of milk and cook at a bare simmer until the gravy starts getting thick. Gradually add additional milk and continue to stir. If it is too thick for your liking add more milk and stir. Remove from the heat when desired consistency is reached. Add the cold butter and stir until melted. Check and adjust seasonings (salt if necessary) and serve over split or roughly crumbled biscuits. Serves 6 to 8.
To Chefguy:
You could add bacon, half-and-half, and real butter to crumbled up kitty litter and make an amazing dish.
Just sayin’, LOL.
~VOW
True dat. I fed ten people the Saturday after t-day, and there wasn’t a drop of it left. I thought my son would lick out the pan.
Dude, you got to idiot proof that recipe for the Gravy impaired morons, like me.
How much sausage?
Do you take the sausage out?
Approximately how much flour?
How much milk? Whole Milk, 2% or skim milk make a difference?
NFM, who LOVES biscuits and gravy. And the frozen biscuits. But I have to resort to making gravy from the little packets in sauce section. Williams Sausage Gravy mix is good, but I think homemade would be better.
See my post for some answers.
To notfrommensa:
Trust me, it’s REALLY easy. REALLY, I promise!
For your first attempt, we’ll say one pound of bulk pork sausage. Many meat counters have bulk sausage, but if you can’t find it, look where the bacon is kept in the grocery store, and get a roll of sausage, like Farmer John or Jimmy Dean brand. For this adventure, you don’t want links or patties, you want just ground sausage, it looks like hamburger.
Get a big skillet, and put it on medium heat. Squish the bulk sausage and put it in the pan. Use a big wooden spoon or a pancake turner to break it up while it cooks. You want those nummie-roonie little bites of sausage in the gravy. Continue to cook it while the sausage browns, and those nummie-roonie bites get a little crispy on the edges.
When the sausage has cooked enough so you’ve got those little browned bits and the grease has melted out, turn the burner down to low, and get your flour. You can use regular, all-purpose flour, or whole wheat flour, or my favorite, Wondra. If you have a canister of flour, or you are dipping it out of the paper bag with a spoon, scoop up about 1/4 to 1/2 a cup, and sprinkle the flour, stirring with the wooden spoon or the pancake turner. Don’t dump all the flour in at once, just sprinkle it while stirring. You want to get the liquid grease in the skillet to make good friends with the flour. When it looks like almost all the grease has been absorbed by the flour, STOP. Don’t add any more flour. Just keep stirring and stirring, and the flour-grease mixture will bubble and cook for a little while. A few minutes is what you need, to make sure the flour doesn’t have a “raw” taste to it in the finished product.
Now it’s time for the milk. You can use non-fat, 1%, 2%, or regular homogenized milk. I like to use a can of evaporated milk, it makes a richer gravy. Start with about a cup and a half of milk. If it came cold from the refrigerator, it’s going to take a bit longer to heat up. Just dump all the milk in at once, and you can turn the burner back up to medium. Keep stirring. You may want to use a whisk at this point, but gravy has been made since the beginning of time with just a wooden spoon. Stir-stir-stir. As the milk heats up, and you keep stirring, the flour-grease mixture will blend into the milk. Keep stirring. The milk will begin to form little bubbles around the edge of the pan, keep stirring.
Then the magic occurs. The flour-grease globs are GONE. They have incorporated into the milk, and as the milk begins to simmer, IT GETS THICKER. Congratulations! You have GRAVY!
Depending on how much grease was released from the sausage, and how much flour you added to blend with the grease, the gravy you have may or may not be the right consistency. It could be pretty thick. NO problem! Add more milk, and stir-stir-stir. The milk has to warm up, and start to feel welcome at the gravy party. It will. Keep stirring. You’ll get the mixture to simmer a little bit, and the thick stuff will thin out. You add as much milk as necessary to reach the consistency that you need to put the gravy over your biscuits. As as the gravy cools, it will get thicker. Because of that quality, you may want to make the gravy a little bit thinner than what you think you need.
Gravy is NOT exact science. It is a seat-of-your-pants type cooking, in that it depends entirely upon what you have on hand, and what you need as far as finished product goes. That is why generations of people have been able to feed extra mouths at the table, or stretch a meal just a little bit further. Gravy has flavor and texture, and it goes on bread, on potatoes, on noodles, or whatever you have. It’s cheap, it’s easy to fix, and it can always be stretched to feed another mouth.
When you are happy with your gravy, taste it. Sausage is a pretty salty product, so you may need little to no salt. However, in my opinion, sausage gravy needs LOTS of black pepper!
Happy eating!
~VOW
ETA: Leave the cooked sausage in the pan while you add the flour, and later stir in the milk. It won’t hurt anything, and it saves another dish to wash!
I could hear my arteries harden just reading that. My cardiologist will thank you. The boat isn’t going to buy itself.