Southern Sausage Gravy

Traditional Southern Recipe For Sausage Gravy - biscuits and homemade white gravy with sausage on a white plate

5 from 2 votes

This recipes for sausage gravy is the Southern recipe I made with my grandma and mom and now I taught my daughter this family recipe. Make sure you use a large, deep pan (like a cast iron skillet). You can brown the sausage and make the gravy in the same pan. If you eat this white gravy over biscuits (and don't make homemade biscuits), I recommend using the Southern homestyle biscuits and not the flaky layered biscuits. The southern style biscuits are heartier and better with gravy on them.

Prep Time5

Cook Time15

Course: Breakfast

Cuisine: American

Servings:

Calories: 265kcal

Ingredients

1 pound ground pork sausage
1/3 cup white flour
4 cups milk
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
salt to taste

Instructions

In a large, deep skillet pan (cast iron works great!), break apart the sausage into smaller pieces. Cook sausage until evenly browned and no longer pink.
Using a slotted spoon, remove cooked sausage and place on a paper towel lined plate to drain. Leave sausage drippings in pan. If you don't have a lot of sausage drippings, add 2-3 tablespoons of butter to pan to melt.
Over medium heat, add 2 tablespoons of flour to sausage drippings (or butter) in pan. Whisk and stir until drippings are absorbed into flour. (You will have flour clumps at this point. That's OK!)
Add one cup of milk to the flour clumps and whisk until smooth. (You may need to add a little more milk.) Cook until light brown, just a few minutes.
Whisk in the remaining flour, stirring until smooth. (You may need to add a little more milk at each step.)
Gradually whisk and stir in remaining milk a little at a time. Continue stirring until smooth and gravy starts to bubble and thicken. Be sure that there are no flour clumps and stir to prevent the gravy from burning on the bottom. Season with salt and pepper.
Reduce heat to medium-low to simmer. Add cooked sausage to gravy and cook until sausage is heated through and gravy is thickened, about 8-10+ minutes. If the gravy gets too thick, stir in a little more milk. If it's not getting the thick consistency you want, you can also add in a little more flour. Just be sure to continue stirring so it doesn't burn on the bottom!
Serve immediately over hot biscuits, adding more salt and pepper to taste. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

Notes

Some people use white pepper for white gravy, but it never bothers me that you can see the pepper so we use ground black pepper. Be liberal with the salt and pepper to get a good seasoning!

If you use ground turkey sausage, you will definitely need to add fat (like butter) to the pan before making the gravy.

Nutrition