How To Make Sausage Gravy
This Southern sausage gravy takes three ingredients: milk, flour, and sausage. It’s creamy, peppery, and full of browned sausage flavor, and it’s best spooned over a warm, fluffy homemade biscuit.
A Quick Look At The Recipe
- Recipe Name: Sausage Gravy
- Serves: 4
- Main Ingredients: milk, flour, sausage, salt and pepper to taste, biscuits for serving
- Why You'll Love It: Learn how to make sausage gravy with 3 simple ingredients: milk, flour, and sausage. It's so flavorful and best served over a fluffy homemade biscuit.
Nothing beats homemade biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast on a special occasion, or just because it’s Saturday. It’s Southern comfort food at its finest.
Simple, Old-Fashioned, and Just Plain Good
It always unnerves me to see a sausage gravy recipe with an ingredient list that reads like a scientific classification. Southern cooking doesn’t need all that. Milk, flour, and sausage make sausage gravy. That’s all there is to it.
The flavor comes from the drippings. When you brown sausage, it leaves behind seasoned fat and little browned bits stuck to the bottom of the skillet. Cooking the flour in those drippings is what gives homemade sausage gravy its rich, toasty taste. It’s the same method behind the milk gravy I make for cubed steak.
I make mine by browning sliced sausage, then crumbling a piece or two back into the gravy at the end. That way you have extra sausage on the side for anybody who wants it. If you’d rather have your sausage crumbled all through the gravy, I’ll show you that way too.
Ingredients for Sausage Gravy
- Sausage: Ground pork breakfast sausage is classic. Sage sausage adds an herby note, and hot sausage gives the gravy a kick. A roll of sausage works for slicing or crumbling, and any extra is perfect for Rotel cream cheese sausage balls.
- Flour: All-purpose flour or self-rising flour both thicken the gravy. For gluten-free gravy, use a cup-for-cup gluten-free flour blend.
- Milk: Whole milk makes the creamiest gravy. Lower-fat milk works, but the gravy will be a little thinner.
- Salt and black pepper: Be generous with the pepper. Taste before you salt, since sausage is already salty.
You’ll find the amounts in the recipe card below.
Helpful Tips Before You Start
- Use a cast iron skillet if you have one. It browns the sausage evenly and holds the drippings that flavor the gravy. It’s the same skillet I reach for when I make chicken fried steak.
- Measure your drippings. You want about 2 tablespoons of grease in the skillet. If your sausage was lean and you’re short, add a little butter to make up the difference.
- Brown the flour. Let the flour cook in the drippings for a minute or two until it smells toasty. That gets rid of the raw flour taste.
- Add the milk slowly. Pour it in a little at a time and stir the whole while. That’s the secret to gravy with no lumps.
- Give it time to thicken. Gravy keeps thickening as it simmers and as it cools, so pull it off the heat when it’s just a touch thinner than you want.
How to Make Sausage Gravy
1. Brown the Sausage
Slice your sausage to whatever thickness you like. I usually go about half an inch.
Place the sausage in a skillet over medium heat.
Cook until browned on both sides and cooked through.
2. Drain and Save the Drippings
Move the cooked sausage to a paper towel-lined plate to drain.
You’ll have a good bit of grease left in the skillet. You need about 2 tablespoons, so pour off any extra.
3. Cook the Flour
Sprinkle 3 to 4 tablespoons of flour into the skillet. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring, until the flour turns light brown.
Scrape up the browned sausage bits from the bottom of the skillet as you stir, then season with salt and pepper.
4. Add the Milk
Slowly pour in the milk, about a cup and a half, stirring the whole time. Keep stirring until the gravy is smooth, creamy, and thick enough to coat a spoon.
5. Crumble in the Sausage
Crumble a piece or two of the cooked sausage into the gravy and stir. I made a small batch here, so one patty was plenty.
There you have it. Now you know how to make sausage gravy. Spoon it over warm cathead biscuits while it’s hot.
How to Make It With Crumbled Sausage
If you like sausage in every bite, brown bulk sausage in the skillet and break it into small crumbles with a spatula as it cooks. Leave the sausage right in the pan and spoon off extra grease until about 2 tablespoons remain.
Sprinkle the flour over the sausage, stir it until it’s coated and lightly toasted, then slowly stir in the milk. More sausage in the pan means you may need a splash more milk to get the gravy where you like it. This version is great spooned over grits.
How to Serve Biscuits and Sausage Gravy
Most folks set a biscuit on the plate, split it in half, and spoon gravy over both halves.
That’s not how we really like it, though. We tear our biscuits up in a bowl and pour the sausage gravy over the top, because that’s how our mamas did it when we were little. Grab a spoon and pretend your mama is there.
- Biscuits: big, fluffy cathead biscuits, 3-ingredient buttermilk biscuits, or quick drop biscuits
- Beyond biscuits: spooned over Southern grits, fried potatoes, or a slice of hash brown casserole
- Round out breakfast: cheesy scrambled eggs and a bowl of Southern fried apples
- For the sweet tooth: pass a second bowl of chocolate gravy for dessert biscuits
Make-Ahead, Storage, and Reheating
- Make ahead: Make the gravy the night before and store it in the fridge. Reheat it on the stovetop in the morning while the biscuits bake.
- Fridge: Store leftover gravy in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
- Freezer: Freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the fridge overnight.
- Reheat: Warm it in a saucepan over low heat or in the microwave. Gravy thickens as it sits, so stir in a splash of milk until it’s creamy again.
Sausage Gravy FAQs
Why is my sausage gravy lumpy?
The milk probably went in too fast. Next time, add it a little at a time and keep stirring. To fix lumpy gravy, whisk it hard over low heat for a minute and most of the lumps will smooth out. The same trick works for turkey gravy at Thanksgiving.
How do I thicken sausage gravy?
Let it simmer a few more minutes while you stir. It will also thicken as it cools. If it’s still thin, sprinkle in a little more flour and stir until smooth.
How do I thin out gravy that’s too thick?
Stir in milk a tablespoon or two at a time until it’s the way you like it.
What kind of sausage is best for sausage gravy?
Pork breakfast sausage is the classic choice. Spicy pork sausage and sage sausage are great too, and some folks use Italian sausage. For a little extra heat, add a pinch of cayenne or red pepper flakes.
Can I make gluten-free sausage gravy?
Yes. Use a cup-for-cup gluten-free flour blend in place of the flour, and check your sausage label to make sure it’s gluten-free.
Sausage Gravy
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups milk
- 3 tbsp flour
- 8 oz pork breakfast sausage
- salt and pepper to taste
- biscuits for serving
Instructions
- 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 a pan or skillet over medium heat and cook until brown. Remove the cooked sausage from the pan and place it on a paper towel-lined plate to drain.8 oz pork breakfast sausage
- 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 brown. Scrape the bottom of the skillet to stir the sausage bits into your gravy, then salt and pepper to taste. Add milk and stir well until smooth and creamy.3 tbsp flour, salt and pepper to taste, 1.5 cups milk
- Take a piece of sausage or two and crumble it up in your gravy. Serve over a warm biscuit.biscuits for serving
Now I have to start by pointing out that I’m a transplant. I’ve lived in the South for about a quarter of my life and before that I lived in the northernmost end of Michigan. My grandma (born, raised, and only left to visit the grandkids in Iowa) used to make milk gravy out of pretty much whatever meat she used, so I never really associated it with just sausage much less a biscuit.
When I married a southern woman, and learned that such gravy was a staple, I was thrilled, but for some reason in this region they seem to leave out the “brown stuff in the bottom” and just use the flour and milk. No sausage, no pepper, no salt, no taste.
I’m wondering if it is a regional thing or if I’ve just hit a run of bad luck.
Your recipe makes me nostalgic for my grandma’s cooking, even if it was not Southern.
(And I’ll take sweet tea over unsweetened tea any day, thank you.)
This is just the way my family has always made it… the way Granny made it, the way my dad taught my mom (who is from Idaho) to make it, and the way she taught me to make it. Once when I was a kid, my dad made it for us on a Saturday morning and he was so proud of how it turned out, he kept saying “that’s good gravy, ain’t it”… my sisters and I of course agreed, and he kept saying it so much we got to laughing about it. NOW, years later, whenever ANYTHING is good, we say still “that’s good gravy, ain’t it”… This post made me miss my sweet Granny, I might have to make some sausage gravy this weekend to remember her….
Hi Christy.
I was introduced to Sausage gravy and bisquits about 10 years ago .. and I just love it……but….livng in Canada, Nova Scotia to be exact, we can’t buy sausage like in the states…..I buy ground pork and spice it up…. but have never come up with the right taste….. do you have ideas or recipes to give it the “southern” taste. ? That is what we miss, mine tastes OK but it lacks tthe “southern flavor”. Hope you can help me. Thanks
Hey Rosemary! Have you tried sage?
I’ll add making homemade sausage to my list of recipes I need to get up but sage is probably just what you need!
Gratefully
Christy 🙂
Thanks Christy, I will try that…..never did add sage
I keep missing the PRINT button on the recipes…?? This is classic dish…will have to make it your way next time… yummm…..
Just tried this dish, and it’s absolutely delicious. It could have been a little spicier, so I think next time I’ll pick up some spicy sausage, or maybe put in a couple splashes of Tabasco. I’m also going to give the southernplate biscuit recipe a try next; canned biscuits will do in a pinch, but I’m not going to think of myself as an accomplished Southern cook until I make biscuits and gravy completely from scratch. Thanks Christy!
I was raised in Missouri and always thought of myself as Southern until I moved to Georgia. They set me straight on that real fast. So I will claim this as part of my Mammo’s Kentucky lineage. We always cooked the sausage chopped up and left in the gravy. The first time I made this for my true Yank (Illinois) husband he didn’t want to eat it. He was 24 and I couldn’t believe he had NEVER had biscuits and gravy for breakfast. After I convinced him that he had led a neglected and abused childhood he gave it a taste and now it’s his favorite breakfast. He even thinks he makes it better than me. I have graciously allowed him to continue in his fairytale land because this gives me a break from Saturday morning cooking from time to time.
Smart lady!
I only found one thing wrong with this recipe. You didn’t make nearly enough gravy!