# Making gravy tonight (maybe) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [November 11, 2025, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785 "2025-11-11T19:30:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785/21 "2025-11-12T15:51:00Z")
> [@Aspenglow](#): > > I’ve been surprised before by stepping out of my comfort zone, so I might try beef stock and red wine once, just to see if it amped up the flavor or created a new flavor profile I preferred. If / when you try this, let me know how it turns out! > [@Aspenglow](#): > > The whole point of cooking the flour in the fat is to prevent this (also to take the raw flour flavor away). Once the flour molecules take up the fat, they can’t clump together. So take time to make a good, well-cooked roux, and you’ll never have lumps in your gravy. Science! Also, I’ve heard that the longer you cook the roux, the weaker its thickening properties becomes. So a chocolate-brown roux cooked for, say, a gumbo will not have the thickening power of a blonde roux. Just something for us home cooks to keep in mind. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785/22 "2025-11-12T15:56:07Z")
Beef stock doesn’t seem right, at all. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785/23 "2025-11-12T16:04:20Z")
> [@solost](#): > > If / when you try this, let me know how it turns out! I will! It doesn’t repulse me, just seems an odd choice. Maybe I’ll try it for my private Thanksgiving dinner. 🙂 > [@solost](#): > > Also, I’ve heard that the longer you cook the roux, the weaker its thickening properties becomes. So a chocolate-brown roux cooked for, say, a gumbo will not have the thickening power of a blonde roux. I hadn’t learned that, so thanks for sharing. It makes sense. I almost never cook a roux to chocolate brown, usually just tawny, and that works well for my gravy-making purposes. I tend to rely on the fond left in the pan to make darker colored gravies. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785/24 "2025-11-12T16:58:03Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I’ve never gone that far, but my “ruin the gravy” mode is adding too much flour. > > I like a nice dark gravy, that incorporates all the browned bits of fond on the pan plus well-cooked flour in the roux. I also prefer a fairly thin gravy. None of that gloopy stuff. > > If my gravy is going to have lumps in it, they should be finely chopped giblets. Agree on all counts. As for the first sentence, I was following my mother’s somewhat vague instructions. When she said “add an equal amount of flour to the drippings”, I didn’t realize that she didn’t mean ALL of the drippings, so I probably added over a cup of flour. She also didn’t mention browning the flour. Anyway, when I started adding water (no mention of stock), it quickly turned into several quarts of a dubiously pale glue. Everyone politely ate some. When I went back to the kitchen and tried to take the ladle out of the gravy, I ended up lifting the whole pan up. So yeah. . .concrete. In my defense, I had never cooked a turkey or made gravy in my life up to that point (I was 21). ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785/25 "2025-11-12T22:09:34Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > When I went back to the kitchen and tried to take the ladle out of the gravy, I ended up lifting the whole pan up. That’s a pretty funny story to tell later, even though I’m sure it was upsetting at the time. ---
**Author:** ![fischersd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fischersd/32/20113_2.png) [@fischersd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fischersd)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2025, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785/26 "2025-11-13T15:17:07Z")
I bake my bacon and save the grease (aka bacon nectar) in a jar in the fridge. (best before for refrigerated grease is infinity) 😉 You can do the same with your beef drippings (when you make ground beef or a roast and aren’t making beef gravy) - the beef jus and fat will separate. Accumulate that in a jar by itself and now you have some beef tallow to use in such circumstances. Beef tallow has a more pleasant flavour than bacon grease if you’re cooking something that you want to keep the flavour profile more mild - such as chicken gravy. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2025, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785/27 "2025-11-13T15:24:59Z")
Wouldn’t it be better to use chicken fat for chicken gravy? I like my gravy to reinforce the flavor of the main course. ---
**Author:** ![fischersd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fischersd/32/20113_2.png) [@fischersd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fischersd)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2025, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785/28 "2025-11-13T15:31:05Z")
You could also save that in your fridge….to ensure it has a long shelf life, you need to separate the fat from the jus. The jus will go bad (likely after a week or so), so you need to separate the two - once you have the fat in a jar by itself, it should keep virtually forever when refrigerated. It, like bacon grease or beef tallow - should be solid and light in colour. Lard is actually pig fat - and may also be a good substitute when you don’t have enough chicken fat available. I tend to cook a lot more beef than chicken - so easier to accumulate the beef tallow. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2025, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785/29 "2025-11-13T16:02:53Z")
I guess i cook meat a lot more often than i make gravy. And i pretty much only make gravy with a roast, so the pan drippings contain plenty of fat. But i was once served pork gravy with chicken, at a cafeteria, and it was really weird. It looked like it could be chicken gravy… But it tasted of pork. It just felt really wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2025, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785/30 "2025-11-13T16:25:02Z")
My mom used to make pork gravy and serve it over rice while I was growing up (1970s). It was so good. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2025, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785/31 "2025-11-13T16:36:29Z")
I only make gravy when I roast a chicken: pour off the drippings, scrape the goodness off the roasting pan, and tilt the bird so any residual liquid joins in. That, water, butter, and flour are all I use. I like it pretty thick, so I use lots of roux. Because my wife hates all gravy, my kids and I can’t eat it all, and I toss whatever’s left over into the chicken stock that I make out of the carcass. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2025, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785/32 "2025-11-13T16:40:52Z")
> [@solost](#): > > Also, I’ve heard that the longer you cook the roux, the weaker its thickening properties becomes. So a chocolate-brown roux cooked for, say, a gumbo will not have the thickening power of a blonde roux. Just something for us home cooks to keep in mind. Absolutely. From experience, using a white roux as a baseline, I would say a peanut butter-colored roux has about 2/3 - 3/4 the thickening power, and a medium brown, like milk chocolate roux, is getting at about 1/2 the thickening power. If you get into the seriously dark Cajun rouxes, it may be closer to 1/4 thickening power. This is just ballparking it by my experience. I don’t know if there’s any actual charts on this or not. As for gravies, I use whatever fat I have available. I don’t have any issues with butter, oil, animal fats. They all work fine. I keep a jar of mixed animal fats (bacon grease, chicken fat, beef fat, pork fat) from whatever proteins I’ve been cooking over time, and use that as a general cooking fat in recipes. I don’t necessarily care about matching chicken fat to chicken broth or anything like that. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I want a little contrast or additional flavor. There’s no real rules to this. (Like I love making beef stews and bolognese with chicken broth rather than beef.) ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2025, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785/33 "2025-11-13T17:20:44Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > If you get into the seriously dark Cajun rouxes, it may be closer to 1/4 thickening power. That’s what the filé and okra are for. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2025, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785/34 "2025-11-13T17:31:32Z")
Yep. Cajun roux can be a burnt mess in an instant. This is a skillet you never look away from till after you’ve added liquid. My hack to fix a gravy that is too light, add some soy sauce at the end. Before correcting the salt. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2025, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785/35 "2025-11-13T17:54:39Z")
I specifically use dark soy sauce for that. It’s for caramel color in it and a little goes a long way in coloring your sauces. It works much much better at darkening than regular (light) soy sauce and you don’t need anywhere near as much of it so it doesn’t affect the flavor too much. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2025, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785/36 "2025-11-17T14:23:21Z")
Ok, so this darn thread got me craving some chicken gravy. So this weekend I made a chicken stew or fricasee, which is basically chicken and vegetables in chicken gravy, if you think about it. I coated pieces of chicken in seasoned flour, and browned them in a pan with butter. I removed the chicken, added onions, and sauteed the onions. Generous splash of white wine to deglaze the pan and make a fond. Reduced wine, added diced carrots, celery, red pepper, garlic and mushroom. Chicken back in. Black pepper and thyme to season. Added homemade chicken stock and simmered for an hour or so. Added diced potatoes in the last half hour. I used the flour slurry method rather than making a roux to thicken the ‘gravy’ toward the end of cooking. Result? Yum. 😋 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-gravy-tonight-maybe/1024785.md?page=1)