While I love the idea of sausage gravy and biscuits, I don't love the white gravy. My version of biscuits and gravy involves a brown roux!
Originally Posted December 30, 2013. Updated 2/24/2022.
It’s not something I’d ever seen on a menu in Canada before that point... and in the 3 years since moving home, I still haven’t. I’ve heard it’s out there, though!
Anyway, we were watching TV, and whatever show we were watching was demonstrating it.
The cook lobbed a big chunk of shortening into the pan for making the gravy, and at that point... I think it was the most disgusting breakfast idea I'd ever even heard of.
Even without that visual introduction, the idea of anything white being called gravy seemed - and still seems - really OFF to me. In my world, gravy is supposed to be brown!
Well... unless you're Italian, apparently - two of my MasterChef friends schooled me on that one. I digress...
I’ve always been a fan of homemade buttermilk biscuits - my grandma’s flaky homemade biscuits were always the BEST biscuits - and sausage with gravy sounded like a good addition to them.
I just couldn’t get past the idea of a homemade gravy that was so white!
Eventually, I decided to come up with my own sausage gravy recipe, more to my (Canadian!) tastes!
The Perfect Comfort Food
I started out with my grandmother’s classic biscuits, then worked up the best sausage gravy I could envision.
You know, proper brown gravy.
In my personal opinion, if you're using flour to thicken anything aside from a delicate white wine sauce, you should make a proper roux.
Usually "the darker the better", too!
Anyway, the resulting recipe has become a favourite amongst our breakfast recipes.
While many of my breakfast recipes are sweet - and obviously breakfast foods - this savory meal actually works well for any time of day.
A fresh biscuit topped with the creamy texture of the (brown version of!) country sausage gravy? It’s an ultimate comfort food!
Oh, and while the whole recipe from scratch takes very little time, you can even speed it up a bit by using your favourite premade biscuit dough. It’ll be one of the easiest recipes you make!
About Traditional Biscuits and Gravy?
For those outside of the United States, a bit more info.
Sausage gravy and biscuits is a popular American breakfast food, most commonly served in the southern USA, and in chain restaurants.
In consists of flaky biscuits (the scone-ish kind, not cookies!), generally split in half and arranged on a plate. They’re topped with a creamy sausage gravy - also known as sawmill gravy, or southern sausage gravy.
The gravy is generally made from the sausage fat left in the pan from cooking the sausage. Flour is added to the leftover grease and browned bits in the bottom of the pan, and cooked just long enough to get rid of potential flour taste.
Milk is added, creating a creamy gravy. The gravy and sausage is served together over the biscuits, as a hearty breakfast.
Why I Use a Roux for my Sausage Gravy
You see, when it comes to food... browning is flavour. Whether it's a meat, a crust, a cookie... browning your food is adding all kinds of wonderful flavours to it.
Why go with a white gravy, when a brown one takes only a few minutes more? I don't get it.
So, rather than just looking at the flour as a thickening agent alone, I look at it as a way to add flavour.
When you cook the flour and butter together as a roux, it turns into a rich, toasty, almost nutty flavour - it's the best way to start any gravy, really.
Making a Roux for Your Gravy
Making a roux is pretty simple: You melt some fat, stir some flour in, and cook it - stirring constantly - until it gets as brown as you’d like it.
Now, most people recommend cooking your roux over medium heat or lower heat, and it can take a really long time.
If you're just starting out with rouxs, I'd say caution is probably a good idea... but just as an FYI, I usually cook my roux on medium-high heat.
As long as you're careful, don't stop stirring, and have your liquid pre-measured and ready to go... I find cooking on medium high heat to be pretty low risk.
As flour cooks and darkens, it loses some of its thickening power.
When you first mix the butter and flour together, it will thicken a LOT more liquid than a similar amount of a really dark brown roux.
Play around with it, and see where your preferences take you!
If your gravy ends up thicker than you’d prefer, just whisk in a splash of milk, until it reaches your desired consistency.
Biscuits and Gravy Ingredients
This is a great recipe that requires really simple ingredients.
The recipe ingredients are in two parts:
Fluffy Biscuits
You can use any southern-style biscuits you like, but I recommend my Baking Powder Biscuit Recipe as your base. These are by far my favorite biscuits.
All they require is:
All purpose flour
Baking Powder
Salt
Shortening, lard, or Cold Butter
Milk or Buttermilk
This photo used my gluten free biscuits recipe, with white rice flour in the gravy
Homemade Sausage Gravy
Sausage of Choice
While we were still living in the USA, I loved using the Papa George's brand of sausage.
It’s about a million times better than anything else on the market, is perfectly seasoned and flavoured, isn’t as salty as some, and has almost no fat in it. We’d use either the regular, hot, or sage flavoured sausage chubs in this recipe.
Because this recipe was developed with that particular sausage, you may find yourself wanting to use less butter, if you use a fattier sausage.
That said, feel free to use whatever breakfast sausage you like - Jimmy Dean, pork sausage, spicy sausage, even just seasoned ground pork.
Turkey sausage works well in this recipe, without any alteration needed.
The Other Gravy Ingredients
Butter - I use butter for my roux, but feel free to use olive oil or bacon grease if you prefer.
Flour - I use all-purpose flour. If you need it gluten-free, you can use white rice flour or light buckwheat flour, they both work well for this.
Milk - I tend to use 2% milk, but whole milk, almond milk, and coconut milk all work well - just use unsweetened versions!
Salt and black pepper.
The gravy can be seasoned with some red pepper flakes, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and / or fresh herbs, if you’d like.
I’ll usually go with the flavour of whatever sausage I’m using. If it needs a little something once the gravy is done, I’ll add in whatever compliments the flavour of that sausage.
How to Make Sausage Gravy and Biscuits
The full recipe is in the recipe card at the end of this post, but here is the pictorial overview
Preheat oven for biscuits, line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Following the biscuit recipes, make the dough, cut it out, and place biscuits on the prepared baking pan.
Before placing the biscuits in the oven, brown the sausage in a large fry pan or large skillet. Remove sausage from pan, set aside.
I used turkey sausage for this batch
Melt butter in that same frying pan. Stir in flour until smooth. Cook over medium or medium-high heat - stirring constantly - until it’s as brown as you want it.
Slowly add in about half of the milk, stirring until smooth. Add the rest of the milk - in small amounts - stirring once again until smooth.
Add a little more milk if the gravy is too thick for your tastes, then season with additional salt and pepper to taste.
Keep gravy warm until biscuits come out of the oven. Split warm biscuits in half, spoon gravy over top, serve immediately.
Leftovers?
Ideally, you’ll only serve the gravy over biscuits that will be served immediately, as leftovers are definitely better when the gravy is kept separate from the biscuit.
So, allow any leftover biscuits and gravy to cool to room temperature. Transfer the gravy to an airtight container and wrap the biscuits in plastic wrap.
If you don’t use them the next morning, they’ll be good for a couple of days in the fridge.
More Breakfast and Brunch Recipes
Looking for more ideas to jazz up your breakfast experience! Here are a few more recipes for you:
Ambrosia Belgian Waffles
Apple Cinnamon Buns
Baking Powder Biscuits
Blueberry Banana Bread
Breakfast Bagel Strata
Breakfast Pizza
Chai Cinnamon Rolls
Deluxe Pizza Strata
Easy Banana Bread
Easy Cheese Souffle
Eggless Banana Bread
Fig, Honey, and Goat Cheese Strudel
Ham & Swiss Breakfast Pizza
Ham, Swiss, and Kale Strata
How to Make Peameal and Back Bacon
Maple Walnut Spiced Pumpkin Buns
Peanut Butter & Jelly Rolls
Peanut Butter Banana Bread
Smoked Gouda and Chive Scones
Rosemary Peach Balsamic Scones
Strawberry Orange Rolls
The BEST Hash Browns/ Skillet Potatoes
Looking for even quicker options? Check out my Muffin Recipes, too! There are also some fantastic Bagel Recipes on this blog...
Share the Love!
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Well, the published nonsense, anyway!
Easy Sausage Gravy & Biscuits - MY way!
Ingredients
- 1 recipe Baking Powder Biscuits
- 12 oz Sausage of Choice *
- 4 Bbsp Butter
- 4 tablespoon Flour White Rice or Light Buckwheat works, for Gluten Free
- 1 ½ Cups Milk
- Salt and Pepper To Taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven for biscuits. While it’s heating up, brown the sausage in a fry pan. Remove sausage from pan, set aside.
- Put biscuits in the oven, make the gravy:
- Melt butter in that same frying pan. Stir in flour until smooth. Cook over medium or medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until it’s as brown as you want it.
- Slowly add in about half of the milk, stirring until smooth. Add the rest of the milk, stirring once again until smooth.
- Add in the cooked sausage, stir well and bring up to a simmer – the gravy will thicken as it simmers. Add a little more milk if the gravy is too thick for your tastes, then season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Keep gravy warm until biscuits come out of the oven. Split warm biscuits in half, smother with gravy.
- Enjoy!
Angry country gravy
This is the most out of touch garbage I've ever read. It reads like a hollywood heroin filled self indulgence. To write a piece like this and proclaiming to define gravy. Everyone in the US needs to know that the spoiled brat who wrote this is the be all and say all of gravy. Ignore the fact that county gravy has been around for hundreds of years. This thing states that all gravy is brown (except italian of course). There are many gravies in this world. Just because you watched one way of making county gravy you base all recipes upon that. And to think you are such a god inside the kitchen that your brown garbage is the way county biscuits and gravy should be served speaks volumes of how terrible our culture is becoming. Here is some information for you. A roux requires two things, fat and flour. Maybe you need to make a trip to the south and stay in the most posh hotel you can find. Next head on down to any reputable restaurant in the area and by reputable I mean a restaurant that serves everyone not just golden spoon brats such as yourself. Then ask if they can show you how to make county gravy. Then eat it before you decide what is the best way to make county gravy. If you want to sit in your apartment and watch some videos without even trying a real recipe then don't open your over privileged mouth.
Country gravy is not brown gravy and people have eaten it long before you became God of your mind you ignorant troglodyte.
Marie Porter
Oh boy. Where to even start with this one?
First off, I'm sorry that you were so triggered by my recipe. If people posting their own tweaks to suit their tastes is so stressful for you, maybe there are some cute baby animals on Youtube that would be better suited for your blood pressure?
I have no idea where you're getting "Hollywood heroin filled self indulgence" over "This is the way I do it, to suit my own tastes", but... wow.
You spent an awful lot of words to tell me off for getting "county" gravy wrong, yet somehow you seem to miss the fact that what you're telling me off about is "Country" gravy. There's an r in there, sweetie, and even I - as a Canadian - know this.
Yes, Canadian. I'm not indicative of anything at all to do with your culture or how terrible it is becoming. Amazingly, there are more people than Americans on this planet, and I am one of them. Ironic, isn't it, that you tell me of "different gravies around the world", yet are too myopic to notice the fact that I am, in fact, not an American. Not only is fact all over this blog, it's mentioned right here in this post!
I suppose I should give you a pass on that, as you've made it quite clear that you didn't actually read the post, in your haste to defend county [sic] gravy. You claim that I watched one way and base all recipes upon that (???), yet - assuming you meant to say that I extrapolated that all recipes are that way, based on a single video - you apparently missed the very next line where I specifically mentioned having learned that there were different ways it was made.
As my favourite posters as a kid implored ... READ!
I have no idea why you've come to the conclusion that "Biscuits and Gravy ... My Way" is a direct translation to "This is how you must make biscuits and gravy, because I am the *checks notes* "god" of such things", but seriously... calm your tits.
Yikes.
BigSpence
Bahahahaha. Listen Im from the south and I love our whote fluffy old gravy but you wanna know something. My wife who is also from the south was talking aboit how her Grandma who also was southern as cornbread and buttermilk made a brown breakfast gravy and she had a hankerin for it . So as her loving and supportive as i can be husband i decided to look one up and BTW. Your brown gravy is so good my toungue bout beat me into brain damage, so thank you so much for the awesome recipe. And the also fun read of you telling that previous commenting idiot about there idioticy. So 5 stars for you and a crisp high five. Have an amazing day my Maple syrup and blue jean tuxedo loving friend. You kick all the a**
Marie Porter
Not gonna lie, I kind of want to print and frame this review, you made my day! Thank you!
CJ
LMAO @ triggered Country Joe up there. OMG YOU DON'T LIKE WHAT I LIKE HOW DARE!!!1!
MaryJo
Holy crap, "Angry Country Gravy" guy, you need to get back on your meds quick!
AliP
I guess you missed the whole "my way" part of the title? Biscuits and sausage gravy is not a thing outside of the US, the author is not alone in finding the colour off putting and unappetizing, what's wrong with tweaking a recipe to suit your tastes? It is done the world over to all types of international cuisine, do you think American dishes are exempt form this practice?