Southern Plate

How To Make Sausage Milk Gravy


My friend, Michael, called me this week and threatened to put a hit out on me if I keep proliferating our once guarded recipes. He said “It ain’t right you giving all of these things out!”. I mentioned Paula Deen and he quickly let me know that he wasn’t too happy with her for her betrayal of our food heritage either. Michael was being good natured about it, heck I was thrilled that he had actually read my site, but it still doesn’t hurt to know that his Mama has been reading my site as well so I have a built in bodyguard in Miss Nita.
I also have some canned apple butter that he is hoping to get his hands on…

Today, we’re going to make a real staple. This recipe is going to separate the men from the mice, as they say. In our case, it would be one of those things which literally draws the line in the sand. Suppose a person of the northern persuasion (my new politically correct way of saying “yankee”) were to inflitrate our lines and pose as a native. Suppose, just suppose, that discovering who this person was would affect our like…..national security or something. Lets say they wanted to deface our big statue of the boll weevil or some other horrific crime. Well, this gravy alone could detect who the imposter was. Keep reading, I’ll show you why.

Note: No yankees were harmed in the making of this tutorial. They were fed obscene amounts of gravy and southern cooking and will be staying a spell so we can have time to pump them full of dumplings, apple butter, grits, sweet tea, and any other good stuff we can come up with.


You’ll need: Milk, Flour (self rising or plain, doesn’t matter), and sausage.

Don’t you just love simple recipes? That is one of the best things about southern cooking, its just plain simple and just plain good. Always unnerves me when I see a recipe for sausage gravy with an ingredient list that reads like a scientific classification. I think southerners are just trying to show off to folks of the northern persuasion when they do that. Theres no need.
Milk, Flour, Sausage = Sausage gravy.

See that sausage in the pic? You know you’re from my neck of the woods if you took one look at that sausage package and immediately started humming this song. Just for kicks, I like to sing the first part out loud… “For real country sausage, the best you ever tried….” Then wait to hear my kids finish it off… “Take home a package of our Tennessee Pride!”. Thats how I know I raised them right. A person of the northern persuasion would not know this song, of course.
*Conversely, though, you could use this to spot a redneck in your midst. I’m afraid I’d pass (or fail, depending on your point of view) this test with both hands tied behind my back.

Slice your sausage in whatever thickness you prefer. I usually go for about half an inch but some people like it thinner.

Place sausage in pan over medium heat and cook until well browned.
It will look something like this. See that brown stuff in the bottom? Thats gonna be your gravy!
Remove sausage once it is done and place on paper towel lined plate to drain. You will have a good bit of grease left in your skillet. You need about two tablespoons, so if you have more drain it off to leave about that much.
Sprinkle three to four tablespoons of flour in your skillet.

Cook this over medium low heat until the flour is browned.

Scrape the bottom of the skillet to stir sausage bits into your gravy.
Pepper it to taste.
Salt it to taste.
Add milk. I added about a cup and a half here.

Stir well until smooth and creamy.

Take a piece of sausage or two and crumble it up in your gravy.

I made a small amount of gravy so I just used one sausage.

Most folks will take a biscuit and set it on their plate and spoon gravy onto it. They might cut it in half first and spoon gravy on both halves.
Thats not how we really like it though.
We REALLY like to tear our biscuit up in our bowl…because that’s what our mamas did when we were little. :)

Spoon gravy all over it. At this point you can use a fork……or get a spoon and really pretend your mama is there.

If you tear up the biscuits for your guests, you will likely notice them sprouting huge grins at seeing the nostalgic sight.
However, some of them may look at you awful funny – I think you’ve spotted your yankee at this point. Get out your best plates, give them the head of the table, and provide them with the best apple butter and biscuits you have to offer.
We want them leaving with a good impression, by god!
Bring on the sweet tea! We got company!

I bet they won’t wanna mess with our Boll Weevil statue after all…

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Posted by on Jul 20 2008. Filed under Breakfast, FEATURED Southern Favorites!, Sauces/Other, Southern Classics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

64 Comments for “How To Make Sausage Milk Gravy”

  1. Sally

    I use the same ingredients, but make it a little differently. I brown and crumble the sausage in the pan and remove (or add) grease as needed. Then sprinkle flour over the sausage and grease letting it cook and the flour brown. Then I add the milk and make the gravy. It’s my Saturday morning treat during the winter months.

  2. Don

    OK, you might call me a So Cal Redneck, I’m ok with that. I do about the same, except I add a bunch of chopped bacon and use about I third of the sausage. Once this is mostly done, I add a slice of finely diced Jalapeno, handful of onion, half a handful of bell pepper. when those are close to browned (along with the bacon and sausage) I add a handful of diced ham.

    Once that is finished browning I add my flour. Once that is ready, i stir in my milk. At this point I add some garlic powder, about 1/2 tsp, chili powder, 1/4 tsp, cayenne powder, 1/8 tsp, and whisk smooth. I simmer until flour taste is gone and there you go. So Cal milk gravy. At least how I make it.

  3. Amy Ellis

    I always tear my biscuits up just like my mamaw did for me. I now live in the land of the North. I am slowly trying to teach them the way of our people. I have introduced them to the wonderful world of milk gravy, pimento cheese, chicken fried steak and pinto beans! Won’t be to much longer and they will be sayin’ y’all and fixin’ to.

  4. Angela

    The gravy on sliced tomatoes is great! Husband thinks I’m weird but all my family do this when eating biscuits and gravy.

  5. TN man

    what yall know about some chip beef gravy and cat head biscuits?

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