Southern Sausage Gravy

Biscuits and Gravy- my ultimate weekend breakfast. The odds of getting much done after eating this (before a nap anyway) aren’t great, but it is the best way to savor a slow Saturday morning. Hot, flaky biscuits with some smooth, creamy, just a little bit spicy gravy… FAVORITE. This Southern Sausage Gravy has simple ingredients- sausage, flour, liquids (milk + water), and pepper.

You can make your own biscuits with to serve this, but I usually use frozen biscuits. Homemade biscuits are wonderful, but grating cold butter for dough on a Saturday morning is a little too much for me and my sloth ways. I’m working on a biscuit recipe I like that is easy enough, but until then (or maybe always) FROZEN BISCUITS FOR LIFE. I like the Pillsbury Frozen Southern Style Biscuits. They don’t pay me to say this. They’re just really good. Pop some of these in the oven and while they’re baking, have a cup of coffee and throw some of this gravy together. I promise it’s not as hard as it may seem- there are two tips to remember to getting a smooth, creamy gravy that’s not gritty.

Gravy gets its rich, thick, but smooth texture from cooking FAT + FLOUR.

First rule- the FAT: use the grease from the sausage. We need some goooood fat here. And ummm by good fat I don’t mean “good fat” as in healthy good fat like avocados… I mean sausage grease…
Second rule- the FLOUR: only add flour at the beginning while it’s cooking in the fat (the sausage grease). Flour is starch- which is great for thickening things, but it tastes gritty and is lumpy if we don’t heat it up to break down these molecules. Also, cooking it in fat keeps the starch molecules from getting gritty.

The Sausage

I like to use HOT sausage for this, because it adds a lot of flavor and I don’t end up adding any additional spices, except for a little extra black pepper (but I like it pretty spicy). Mild sausage would be fine too- just use whatever is your favorite.

Brown the sausage in a large skillet. It’s ok if there are some brown bits stuck to the pan- that’s GOOD. We’re going to get those in a little bit, hold on.

Don’t drain of any sausage grease! It’s the MVP of the show! This is the fat we need to cook the flour in. If it doesn’t look like there’s any grease sitting in the bottom the pan, that’s also ok- I promise the sausage is greasy enough to take on the flour.

The Flour

Sprinkle on the flour (it’s quite a bit—I use ½ cup flour for a pound of sausage). Stir it up with the sausage and cook it for at least 3 minutes on medium low heat. This is the money step- the flour molecules need to break down with the heat to a) thicken the gravy and b) not be gritty. They need to cook in the grease to get coated with the fat molecules to stay smooth. It might seem dry- that’s ok. Give it a good few minutes to cook, stirring and making sure all of the flour-ed sausage meets the hot hot skillet. It’s doing important work! This is the ONLY time you should add flour. If you add it later, it usually ends up being gritty. You shouldn’t need to add any more though, because starting with this much flour makes a nice, thick gravy.

The Liquids

At this point, you have some weird lumpy flour-y meat. Ew? Hold on, it’s going to get awesome. Pour in the water, slowly- it’s going to bubble up and get a little angry. Stir, stir, stir, and scrape up those brown bits on the bottom of the skillet. They should come up easily with the water- this is called deglazing the pan. Those brown bits have SO MUCH FLAVOR and we really want them to come and play. I like to start with water instead of milk because it’s easier to use water to do this (milk can get stuck to the bottom of the pan quickly!)

Right now, it STILL does not look like yummy creamy gravy- probably still a little weird. Turn the heat back up to get it to a simmer, and LIKE MAGIC it will thicken! Add in the milk, and stir. Let it come back up to a simmer, and it should get thicker as it comes back to a simmer. With these quantities of water and milk, it’s still probably pretty thick. This is good, because you can EASILY add more milk or water to thin it out, but adding more flour to make it thicker is NO NO. So, add more liquid carefully- you can always add more.

The gravy will thicken a bit as it cools too, so keep that in mind. I usually decide it’s perfect, pull the biscuits out of the oven, turn back around and it’s thickened up A LOT, and I end up adding a little more milk or water. Don’t have milk? You could also do mostly water + a little half and half or cream.

I usually add a little more pepper, because I like it pretty spicy, but taste it and see what you think. I don’t add any more salt or spices, because the sausage is bringing all the flavor we need!

Pour a scoop (or two or three) over some biscuits, refill that coffee cup and head to the breakfast table to enjoy!

Sloth Shortcuts

Use these sloth shortcuts to wake up, stumble from your bed to the kitchen, and have biscuits and gravy in less than half an hour.

Sloth Shortcut #1: Frozen biscuits, people. Don’t sleep on them. These are my favorite. You can make your own if you want, but this is what I do.

Sloth Shortcut #2: To avoid having sad, lumpy gravy, remember to follow the two rules- FAT (use your sausage grease) and FLOUR (only at the beginning with the fat!)

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