Nothing quite says “country hospitality” like a big ol’ plate of flaky biscuits and steaming sausage gravy.
So, I can’t help but think it’s sad that our modern society’s idea of biscuits are those hockey-pucks from a can and ‘sausage gravy’ that is made from those MSG-laden packets.
But good news:
It does NOT take a rocket scientist to make homemade biscuits and homemade sausage gravy. I promise.
Homemade sausage gravy was one of the very first “from-scratch” items I ever learned how to make (back when I was still ‘cooking’ Hamburger Helper and Ramen noodles… Really. I used to eat that stuff). It’s a no-brainer, and I’m really only including measurements in this recipe for fun–in reality, you can just sprinkle, dump, and pour, and it will still turn out great.
Homemade Sausage Gravy
- 1/2 lb sausage (here’s my maple sausage recipe)
- 4 Tablespoons flour (where to buy quality flour & grains)
- 2 1/4 cups whole milk
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- Sea salt and ground black pepper to taste (I use this salt)
In a large skillet, cook the sausage until evenly browned. You need several tablespoons of grease in the pan, so don’t drain it unless it’s absolutely swimming in grease.
Sprinkle the flour, garlic & onion powers, salt, and pepper over the sausage. Stir it in thoroughly, coating the meat.
Allow this to cook and brown for 2-4 minutes over medium-high heat. Stir constantly to prevent burning. Browning the flour keeps the gravy from tasting like you are eating raw flour.
Add the milk all at once. Mix well to incorporate, then bring to a low simmer and allow it to thicken to the desired thickness.
Serve your sausage gravy over hot, homemade biscuits. (Try my super simple Buttermilk Biscuits.)
A Few Notes:
- To avoid the MSG and nitrates often found in store-bought varieties, make your own sausage (like my mouth-watering Maple Breakfast Sausage!).
- Cook up a whole pound of sausage, then save half of it back for another meal later in the week (or freeze it!).
- If you are using very lean sausage (like the antelope sausage I am using in these photos), you may need to add an extra 1-2 tablespoons of fat (butter, bacon grease, lard, tallow, or coconut oil) before you add in the flour. Fat is your friend.
- Don’t sweat it if you don’t happen to have raw milk for this recipe. You will end up cooking it past the point of “rawness” anyway, so if fresh milk is scarce at your house, just use pasteurized for this recipe.
- If you like, omit the garlic & onion powders and saute fresh onion and garlic in with your sausage instead.
And the most important note of all:
Don’t ever think that biscuits and sausage gravy must only be a breakfast food. No, no, no. We frequently make sausage gravy and biscuits for supper. And that is perfectly legal.
PrintHow to Make Sausage Gravy from Scratch
Ingredients
- 4 Tablespoons flour
- 2 1/4 cups whole milk
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- Sea salt and ground black pepper to taste (I use this salt)
Instructions
- In large skillet, cook sausage until evenly browned, Do NOT drain
- Sprinkle with flour, garlic & onion powders, salt, and pepper
- Stir, thoroughly coating the meat
- Allow to cook and brown 2-4 minutes over medium-high heat, stirring constantly to prevent burning
- Browning the flour keeps gravy from tasting like raw flour
- Add milk and mix well
- Bring to a low simmer until it reaches the desired thickness
This is my boys favorite breakfast!! we love it over GF waffles!
Blessings
http://bit.ly/sagQsL
Oh, this looks GOOD. This is a favorite in my house, too 🙂 🙂 I know how to make a homemade creamed white sauce, which isn’t that much different than this recipe 😉 🙂 Yummy 🙂 🙂 I know I can make this sauce gluten free, too 🙂 🙂
Oh, I checked out the website with your kitchen photos 😉 🙂 You have a very nice kitchen 🙂 🙂 Your little girl is super adorable, too 🙂 🙂 That’s neat she’s already learning about the land at such a young age 😉
Have a great week. Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather 🙂
Can you please share how to make this Gluten-free? New to the whole GF world and not sure if almond flour would ruin it, or even act as a thickener like wheat flour.
Thank you!
I’ve used rice flour when making gluten-free roux (the flour, butter, and milk combo that makes a nice white sauce for recipes), so I think you could do that with this recipe to make it gluten-free friendly. We exchange it at the same rate, so that would be 4 tablespoons rice flour instead of regular flour. 🙂
Thanks for this! I’m not American, but I really loved this dish when I lived in the States. I’m looking forward to introducing this to my family here in New Zealand.
This looks so delicious! I wish I had some sausage on hand to make some in the morning. Oh well…it’s going on the menu very soon!
I LOVE sausage gravy. I eat it when I go home to visit Momma but my gravy just never turns out right. You’ve inspired me to try again. A yummy weekend breakfast (or dinner) awaits!
Good luck Stephanie! Hope your attempt is successful! 😉
Ah, I hang my head in shame because I have fed my family those hockey-puck biscuits and MSG-laden gravy packets. Now in my defense, I never saw a plate of biscuits and gravy until I met my husband and we visited his family, filled with wonderful southern cooks. You see, I fear the gravy. I am from up north, where we only have gravy at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I never did learn how to make it. But now that I have seen this post and the biscuit recipe, I will give it a try. I’ll let you know when I visit you blog again!
No worries Tam- I used to feed my family the same thing! But kudos to you for giving it a go. You’ll have to let me know how it turns out- I have faith in you! 🙂
Hi! I loved this gravy so much. I’m wondering how long you think it may last in the fridge?
It should last as long as normal leftovers. A day or two in the fridge is fine.
I bookmarked this recipe a couple of months ago because I knew I had some sausage in my freezer and this looked really easy. Finally made it today and it was SO GOOD. And just as easy as it looked. Coupled with the bisquit recipe from my faithful Betty Crocker cookbook and some fresh grapes, lunch was a big hit! Thanks for this. We’ve been moving further away from packaged food and I’m always happy to try something new. I’m going to be spending some time cruising around your site now. I’m sure I’ll find a few more things to try.
Wahoo! So happy that you liked it. You just can’t beat homemade biscuits and homemade gravy in my opinion. 😉
I used rice milk and wow that turned out super yummy!
Good for you! I’ve been making sausage gravy this way for many years. Yes, I’m an old fart. From the farm country in Michigan. This technique works for making mushroom gravy, or onion gravy, too. Yum yum.
I just made this paired with your butter milk biscuit recipe for my family for dinner. This was the first time I have successfully made country gravy from scratch. It was so good and got the thumbs up from my hubby!!!
Way to go– you rock! So happy it turned out for ya 🙂
How do you think this would turn out with coconut milk? Or even yogurt in place of the whole milk? I can’t do uncultured dairy, so we stick with yogurt and non-dairy milks in our house.
Hi Faith-
I would give the coconut milk a try- I think it just might work. I’m afraid that the yogurt would separate and curdle, though.
I wil do the coconut milk and come back to let you know how it turns out!
Can you tell me about how many this would serve? I’m hosting a brunch soon and I’m thinking of making this but I have no idea how far this would go. I need to serve around 20 people. And, do you know if the gravy would freeze at all? I’d like to do as much cooking as I can a few days before and just wondered if this would freeze and reheat well?? I freeze a lot of things, but I’ve never tried freezing any type of gravy. Thanks so much!!
So I gave it a try for the first time and it turned out right. Not to thick, not too thin. Thank you guys for this recipe. The family loved it this morning.
Awesome! So glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
Hello! This recipe looks amazing and I can’t wait to try it. Biscuits and gravy are probably THE favorite food in our house and something that my 5 year old asks for frequently. I am tired of using the dry mix from the store though and wanted to learn how to make it MYSELF… FROM SCRATCH 🙂
Quick question though, how much does this recipe yield? We never seem to have enough gravy to go around and I usually have to double up on the recipe.
That’s a good question Michelle– but I don’t have an exact answer, ha! I know for my family of 3, there is usually more than enough. But, if you do end up with extra, it reheats just fine the next day.
I am glad to be the number 100 to like it and want to let you know I made the Sausage Gravy for a cater, people from New York and They love it. Very easy recipe. Thank you
Chef Valerie Rebellato
Paulista Delight Cuisine
Greenville SC
I am so honored! 🙂 So happy that the recipe was a hit!
Great recipe. Thanks!
Hi Jill,
I wanted to try your recipe for Country Style Sausage, but I get an error when I click on the link (from the recipes page.) I did find the maple flavored sausage recipe. Is the maple recipe the same as the country style?
Thanks, Jennifer
Sorry Jennifer! I actually replaced the country-style sausage recipe with the maple one instead. The country-style was one of the first recipes I posted on the blog, and I wasn’t really happy with the completeness of the recipe (my standards were different back then!). So, I switched to the maple recipe- it’s still very similar, though. 😉 sorry for the confusion!
All right, thanks for getting back to me! I will try the maple sausage recipe!
Will arowroot or coconut flour work?
Coconut flour might be worth a try, however, I can’t say for sure since I don’t use it much. I’d be cautious using arrowroot, since it seems to have a tendency to make mixtures a nasty, stringy texture if you mix it with dairy and heat in the wrong combo. Might be worth it to test it out on a smaller batch first?
Isn’t this a great go-to option? I love that it’s just loads of protein! My husband eats biscuits and gravy EVERY DAY for breakfast! We use sprouted wheat flour because it sits so much better for him/us. He has actually decided he likes hamburger gravy better than sausage, so that requires more spices to liven it up, but it is easier to come by ground burger than by sausage, and it does taste amazing when it’s done! The recipe is here, if anyone’s interested in another variation.
http://modernvintagehousewives.blogspot.com/2013/09/biscuits-worth-effort-and-hamburger.html#.UrhflPRDuSo
It might NOT take a rocket scientist to make good Southern buttermilk biscuits and sausage gravy, but that does NOT mean that a rocket scientist-in-training (my grandson/aerospace engineering program) can’t whip up a batch of each with the best of them if he grew up learning how to cook at his Nana’s side in my traditional kitchen! LOL
Love it! 🙂
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Why would you say not drain grease. I used all the grease and my gravy was full of grease. Waste of time and food
You need the extra fat in this recipe to mix with the flour and create the gravy. However, it has been many years since I’ve used commercial sausage, so perhaps it’s greasier than I recall. Our sausage is usually not fatty enough, and I often end up adding extra bacon grease.
I’ve made this recipe with your biscuit recipe three times, and each was complete success! My husband raves and raves each time. And that is saying a lot since he is a “professional” biscuits n gravy eater and cook himself!
wahoo! That’s what I like to hear! 🙂
It’s a dreary, grey day here in Alpena, MI. The kids and I have been sick all week, and so we had a jar of raw milk that we never consumed, sitting in the fridge, just over four cups. What do you do with four cups of milk? I found your recipes for biscuits (2 cups of milk) and sausage gravy (just over 2 cups- done), and I just had myself the tastiest lunch I’ve had in a long time! I wish I could open a restaurant just so I could serve people this dish properly (but the authorities wouldn’t allow the milk, so…). I can’t wait until another jar sits unfinished. Thank you for putting a smile on my face and a warm comfort in my stomach. Tasty vittles!
Way to go Seth! I’m so glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
Thanks so much for this easy peasy recipe! Just perfect! I was raised on biscuits and sausage/bacon gravy, and my dad tried to teach me. Not the easy way though:-). Love and peace.
Im currently 4 months pregnant and haven’t been able to keep food down since I got pregnant it has been so bad i lost a lot of weight the baby wasn’t growing properly either a month ago i made the sausage gravy and made Pillsbury biscuits i was surprised i kept it down so far that is all i eat its the only thing that doesn’t come back up your recipe literally saved my babys life im starting to gain weight and my baby is as well
This turned out really well 🙂 My family likes it & I will be making it again. Thanks!
First time ever making gravy from scratch and it turned out great!! Thank you for this easy recipe we loved it!