Best Ever Southern Sausage Gravy

Gravy Graduate

I always thought it’d be mission impossible to make the perfect sausage gravy. I spent years watching my father-in-law stirring feverishly over the stove working the gravy to its amazing final state. Twenty years later, I asked him for the recipe to serve biscuits and gravy to my big crew. The recipe is versatile, you can certainly use it for breakfast, but I have also used it with another southern favorite in our house, country fried steak.

Before we start, it’s worth noting that I always cook my gravy in a cast-iron skillet. Cast iron pans don’t have any chemicals in them; they can go from stovetop to oven with ease, they are easy to scrub, and they last forever! I like that the cast iron evenly distributes heat and gravy. It tolerates the stirring process with ease (not scratching the bottom) to get the gravy to the consistency you want. I have several, but I had to buy a larger cast iron pan because I often have to double the recipe to feed my crew!  

• Sausage
• Flour
• Milk
• Seasoning salt
• Pepper

Steps That Are Easy As Gravy:

1. First, prep all of your items so when you start the process of making the sausage gravy, you are focused!
2. When you add the sausage, the easiest way to get the sausage to start to break up is to use a hand potato masher! Keep pressing down on the sausage, scraping excess off each time you brown until you get pebble size bits. 
3. You can use country sausage that is hot or mild, or even Italian sausage if you have it on hand as I did here. 
4. Use only whole milk. You can, and I have substituted almond milk for whole milk for sensitive dietary restrictions, and it will taste fine; however, the body of the gravy does lose some thickness, in my opinion.
5. Don’t be afraid of letting that flour cook in that sausage grease for a bit! Keep stirring until you get a nice light brown color in the skillet before adding the milk. This is where you get the color for your gravy, so not too long, or the gravy will be dark.
6. Once you add the milk, start to scrape the bottom of the skillet with your fork and keep the heat on a low simmer while the flour does its magic and starts to thicken the gravy. Be sure to leave some moisture in the gravy because it will thicken as it cools. The trick here is to find the right time to pull the gravy from the direct heat. Do not be impatient. Depending the how hot the heat is, it can take 10 minutes or more to get the gravy to that amazing texture. 

Best Ever Southern Sausage Gravy

When you make the best ever southern sausage gravy, you have to serve it with my hearty homemade buttery drop biscuits like pictured below.

Nutritional Disclaimer

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