Sausage Gravy and Biscuits is a classic, with delicious and fluffy buttermilk biscuits absolutely smothered in sausage gravy.
Sausage Gravy and Biscuits
by Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime
5.1.14
The gravy I have been making for over 40 years. And the biscuits? NMR, but one that I happen to like from the Mennonite Community Cookbook, posted here on my blog: Buttermilk Biscuits.
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This is absolutely wonderful for breakfast. Maybe the only thing that could make it better would be baked grits and bacon on the side along with hot steaming coffee. If you have never had biscuits and gravy (I know it’s hard to believe there may be anyone left who hasn’t tried it), you are in for a real treat. And those of you in the know, well, count yourselves among the blessed.
I don’t know who actually put gravy over biscuits the very first time, but I would love to jump up and kiss them! I suspect it may have come out of the pre-civil war south in the USA. There are probably lots of people out there who know more than I do about that, food historians and whatnot.
I don’t claim to know the history, but I do know how to make it. And of course, I hope it becomes your new favorite recipe!
To be expeditious about breakfast, start making the biscuits first, and prepare the gravy while those bake. If your gravy gets done a little too soon and starts to get thick (gravy does that as it sits), just whisk a little warm milk into it to thin it out, but be careful there or it will be too thin!
~Sue
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Sausage Gravy and Biscuits
Biscuit Ingredients:
- 2 cups soft winter wheat all-purpose flour, such as White Lily
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
- 1 cup whole buttermilk
Method for Biscuits:
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
- Sift dry ingredients together.
- Mix in shortening with pastry blender, fork, or fingertips until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
- Form a well in center of flour and pour buttermilk in.
- Mix flour into this, stirring and working until flour leaves sides of bowl and forms a ball. When it comes away from
- sides without sticking too bad, it’s ready. Otherwise, work in a little more flour.
- Place dough on floured surface and knead 5-6 times. Do not knead too much or dough will become tough.
- Roll or pat out to about 1/2″ thickness and cut with biscuit cutter or floured glass.
- Place biscuits on ungreased cookie sheet.
- Bake at 450 degrees F. for 8-12 minutes or until light golden.
- Brush tops with melted butter, if desired.
Gravy Ingredients:
- 1 pound bulk pork sausage
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- salt and black pepper to taste
- 2 cups whole organic milk
Method for Gravy:
- Brown sausage in a nonstick skillet and cook until crumbled and cooked through; drain fat, if any. You may opt- or not, to use some of the sausage drippings as part of your butter, but my sausage is very lean and not much there.
- Set cooked sausage aside and keep warm in a bowl.
- Melt the butter in the skillet and whisk in the flour to form a roux. Whisk it gently over low heat until the flour begins to brown and becomes a blond color.
- Quickly whisk in milk and continue to stir and cook until mixture comes to a boil; boil one full minute. gravy should coat the back of a spoon if it is thick enough. If it is too thin, you can rememdy by sprinkling with Wondra flour. If it is too thick, a little more milk should take care of it.
- Stir in cooked sausage and heat until the sausage is warmed back up.
- Serve sausage gravy over split biscuits.
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In this area of Virginia and where I grew up in NC, this white gravy is called sawmill gravy, with or without the sausage. it is good stuff. I usually make with a “hot” sausage.
They call it that around here although most times it is just the generic “biscuits and gravy”. By any name it is a treat! ~Sue
By any name it is a wonderful thing. I don’t know why white gravy is sawmill. Can’t find any info about that. When fresh summer tomatoes come in, my mother will rock it old school. she will fry streak of lean fatback until crisp, fix a couple of eggs, slice a tomato and on the plate, along with a biscuit, will put the streak of lean, tomato and eggs. She will then, get this, drizzle a bit of the pork fat over all. It is a heart attack in the making, but the combination of all the flavors is incredible. She allows herself one plate of this during the summer.
My family is from KY & TN and for us sawmill gravy is made with corn meal and has a different texture. Will try your biscuit recipe. Have a recipe for sausage gravy that was in the very first issue of TOH magazine years back that we’ve tweaked a bit and use when only biscuits and gravy will do!
I hope you like them. Both recipes are very good. The biscuits always perform for me and are from a Mennonite recipe.
Gravy is the perfect food.
Wow, what a terrific recipe Sue. This was so good. We have never had anything like this before. So glad that I listened to my inner child to try this delicious meal. I must have looked at the recipe at least 10 times before I picked it. So glad that I did. We have a new family favorite. The biscuits are the bomb, perfect, just the way we enjoy them. Light, tender, fluffy, crispy on the outside and nice and tender inside. The gravy was excellent, silky, smooth and delish. We really enjoyed this quick and easy to make dish. The only change I made to your recipe was the sausage. I only had Hot Italian Pork Sausages at home, so that is what I made this with. So good, it was perfect for us. Thank you so much for sharing another winner. This is going into my Favorites for 2015. Made FYC Tag Game 2015.
Glad you liked it BK! 🙂
I have never been a great biscuit maker, my mom was one of the best and I just can’t seem to match her skill. lol However, my kids LOVE sausage gravy and biscuits. This is making me want to try making biscuits again!