Name: Bigly Sausage Gravy
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients: 1/2 to 1 lb bulk breakfast sausage; 1 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter; 1/3 cup, heaping all-purpose flour; 4 cups whole milk; 1/2 tsp kosher salt; 1 1/2 tsp or more black pepper, freshly ground

Bigly Sausage Gravy

Prep

Cook

25m

Total

30m

Bigly says

I say a lot of things about other people's grandmothers. I stand by all of it. But this recipe is my grandmother's — Grandma Bigly, four foot eleven, hands like oven mitts, made this gravy every Sunday for sixty years and never once measured anything in front of a witness. So understand the position I'm in here. I am about to hand you the one recipe on this entire website that I did not improve. I couldn't. I tried. She was right the first time.

Here's the decision she made without ever explaining it, and it changes everything: how much sausage. A half pound gives you gravy with sausage IN it. A full pound gives you something closer to creamed sausage — Army SOS, the real thing, what they served men who then went and did difficult work. Both are correct. They are different dishes wearing the same name and you should know which one you're building before you turn on the stove. Most recipes won't tell you that. Most recipes give you one number and no theory.

The flour is the other lever. A heaping third of a cup makes a thick gravy, the kind that sits on a biscuit and STAYS there, holds its shape, doesn't run off the plate like it has somewhere better to be. Less flour, thinner gravy. That's the whole dial and you're allowed to turn it. What you're not allowed to do is dump the flour into a dry pan. You need enough fat in there to moisten every grain of it — that's why the butter goes in after the sausage, a little more than a tablespoon, and you wait until it's melted and BUBBLING before the flour goes anywhere near it. Then you cook that paste until it browns. Raw flour tastes like a paper bag. Nobody wants a paper bag on their biscuit.

Then the milk, one cup at a time, and you stir like it's your job. The first two cups are the whole ballgame — that's where lumps are born and that's where you kill them. Stir constantly. No mercy. Once all four cups are in, keep the heat up and keep stirring until it comes to a boil, and it will thicken more than you expect, and then it will thicken AGAIN as it stands. That's not a flaw. That's the gravy doing what gravy does. Too thick later? Splash of milk. Done.

Ingredients

1/2 to 1 lbbulk breakfast sausage(half pound for gravy, full pound for creamed sausage)
1 1/2 tbspunsalted butter(enough fat to moisten all the flour)
1/3 cup, heapingall-purpose flour(use less for a thinner gravy)
4 cupswhole milk(whole is best but any will do)
1/2 tspkosher salt
1 1/2 tsp or moreblack pepper, freshly ground

Steps

1
Cook the sausage over medium-high heat in a pan with enough room to hold 6 cups of liquid without getting messy, breaking it up into whatever size pieces you like in gravy. Mostly smaller bits with a few larger clumps works well.
2
When the sausage is cooked through, add the butter. You want enough fat in the pan to moisten all of the flour.
3
Once the butter is melted and bubbling, add the flour. Stir it into the butter and sausage thoroughly and cook until it browns and becomes a bubbly paste.
4
Slowly stir in the milk about a cup at a time. Cook the first 2 cups the longest, stirring constantly to break up any flour clumps.
5
Once all the milk is added, continue cooking over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture comes to a boil.
6
Add the salt and pepper. Let the gravy boil slowly for a few minutes, stirring, until it really starts to thicken.
7
Turn the heat to low and simmer until it is almost as thick as you like.
8
Pour into a bowl and leave uncovered until ready to serve. It thickens further as it stands.
9
If it gets too thick, or when reheating leftovers, stir in a little more milk.

One more thing

Pour it over split biscuits and eat it standing up if that's the kind of morning it is. Half pound or full pound, thick or thin — you've got the dials now, which is more than she ever gave anybody, and I mean that with love. That's Grandma Bigly's gravy. Make it twice and you'll never look at a recipe for it again, and somewhere a very short woman is nodding. Don't say I never gave you anything.