The first time I remember having sausage gravy, I was 12 years old, visiting my Great-Aunt in Kentucky. She cooked for days preparing for our family reunion. There were Derby Pies, fried chicken, a country ham or two, collard greens, fried catfish and hush puppies, cornbread, scallop potato casseroles, jello salads and more! The morning everyone was supposed to descend on the house, Aunt Jeanne made this gravy, paired with buttermilk biscuits fresh from the oven. I was assigned to a corner to eat and be quiet. (Me? Talking too much? Nah!)
One bite and I was in heaven. The rest of the food went entirely unnoticed as I slurped down every delicious bite of this gravy.
I promise, the same thing will happen to you! One bite and you’ll be hooked forever.
Keep in mind, this is NOT a “light” recipe. This is good old-fashioned, southern style, stick to your ribs, add more butter, make your pre-teen great-niece shut-up gravy!
Sausage Gravy
Yield: 8 servings
Serving Size: 3/4 cup
Ingredients
1 lb Jimmy Dean Sausage
3/4 cup Wondra Flour
1 stick (8 TBLS) Butter (if using regular butter, omit salt from the recipe!)
3 1/2 cups Whole Milk
1 1/4 cups Half and Half
1/2 tsp Salt (can add more to taste)
2 tsp Pepper (can add more to taste)
Warm Biscuits!
Instructions
In a dutch oven, over medium heat, cook the sausage until brown and crumbly.
Do NOT drain the sausage! You want that full-fat flavor!
Add butter and allow to melt completely. Let the butter foam a little bit before continuing.
Add salt and pepper.
Add flour and stir continuously until the flour has soaked up all the butter and the meat looks dry and pasty. (Not attractive, but OH SO delicious!)
Add up to 1/8 cup more flour if needed.
Slowly add the milk and half and half, stirring constantly.
Lower the temperature slightly and bring the gravy to a simmer (do not boil)
Stir for three minutes, until completely heated through.
Taste and adjust seasonings, adding more salt and pepper if needed.
Gravy will continue to thicken after you remove it from the heat.
Serve over warm biscuits
Notes
Bake the biscuits while the gravy is cooking. The cold milk and half and half take a while to come to a simmer. It’s usually perfect timing to put the biscuits in the oven just before starting the gravy! Enjoy!
If you need perfect biscuits to go with this, check out my Basic Buttermilk Biscuits! It’s simple to create a great southern breakfast in less than an hour. Of course, if you want to add hash browns and an egg or two, I certainly won’t stop you. You could even pour this gravy over pork chops and it would be phenomenal!
There are just five ingredients – and a lot of down-home, southern love in this recipe! That’s the best kind of recipe!
Hey Stephanie! I found the recipe and it’s BACK baby!!
I’ve used this recipe before and it was amazing!!! I was planning to bring it to work with me in the morning, but the recipe is no longer posted on here!!!!!! Where did it go?!?!?!?! I’m desperate!!!!!
Hi Stephanie! First, I’m so happy to hear you’ve tried this recipe and you love it! Second, and I’m so sorry about this but I lost most of my recipes when my site was switched to a new theme and the recipe plug-ins didn’t convert. Thankfully we use this recipe often and I have it (mostly) memorized! Here you go: 1 stick unsalted butter, 16 oz tube of Jimmy Dean sausage, Flour and whole milk. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium high heat. Add the sausage to the pan. Brown the sausage in the melted butter. Do not drain off the butter or fat from the sausage. Stir in enough flour to soak up all the butter and drippings. The meat should look powdered and very dry. Salt and Pepper to taste. Add enough milk to completely cover the sausage by at least an inch. I want to say it’s about 4-6 cups, but I use the same pan every time and don’t often measure because I know exactly how it’s supposed to look and where I want it to be in the pan. Slowly bring the milk and flour coated sausage up to a simmer, stirring often. The mixture will thicken as it heats. Because the fat content is so high, it will stick to the bottom and burn quickly if you’re not stirring it every minute or so. If the gravy seems to thick, add a bit more milk. If it’s too thin, with Wondra you can easily add a bit more flour to thicken it up. I’m so very sorry they are not exact measurements, but I hope it makes sense! Good luck with your breakfast at work tomorrow! Please write back if I can be of any other help!
Hi Sara!! I’m up at 3am, not able to sleep and decided to check on the blogs of some of my fellow Camp Blogawayers. Yours was top of the list. So many fun things going on. Love your About Me page, especially the opening pic. Love the Table Talk. The Gourmandise (sp?) school looks like something I’ll have to try out with my summer free time. Love the scrolling pics across the top. Your entire blog has the same spirited, lively personality I encountered in person–matches you! Your love of all things food shines through.
Hi Maria!! Sorry you couldn’t sleep last night, but I’m happy you came to visit! Thank you for your kind words about my blog. I enjoyed yours very much too. If you get a chance to go to Gourmandise, you will not regret it!! They are fabulous! We should meet for coffee this summer! When is school over for you? I’m out June 14th!
Look at you with your Wondra flour and Jimmy Dean sausage! I absolutely love–I mean, deep marry you love–sausage gravy. But sausage gravy can’t clean up after I cook, hence marrying The Beloved instead. ;)
And good for you for going full-on fat. I mean, it’s not as if anyone could/should eat this 3x/day every day, even if it would be tasty. So, you may as well go for it on the rare occasions that you treat yourself.
I must get my hands on some sausage so I can make this. I have some frozen biscuits already cut waiting in the freezer… =)
You’ve gotta go with the full-fat on this one! No question it is a special treat in our house. Let me know if you try it! I’d love to hear about it!
We have medium bulk sausage coming in our CSA box on Thursday. Will be enjoying sausage gravy and biscuits on the weekend! I will keep you posted!
Shut the front door, I will make these this weekend :)
It was a blast meeting you and sharing a table with you at Camp Blogaway. With recipes like this I will be HOOKED on your site!
Angela
Hi Angela! It was awesome meeting you too! You have such a sparkling smile and I hope we keep in touch.