Sausage & Biscuits

This is old-school Southern breakfast the way it’s supposed to be done. Brown the sausage, use the drippings to build your gravy right in the same pan, and pour it all over warm split biscuits.

The gravy comes together like any white sauce: fat, flour, milk, stir. The sausage drippings are what give it that savory, peppery backbone you can’t get from butter alone. Stir the flour into the hot fat off the heat first so it doesn’t clump, then add the milk slowly while whisking.

Once the gravy thickens and turns glossy, fold the crumbled sausage back in and let it simmer a few minutes. That short simmer lets the meat flavor bleed into the gravy so every bite tastes rich and porky.

Chef Tips

• Keep about a quarter cup of drippings. Too much fat makes the gravy greasy. Too little and you won’t have enough to cook the flour properly.
• Add milk slowly. Pour it in a splash at a time, stirring constantly. Dumping it all at once causes lumps that are hard to smooth out.
• Use half and half instead of whole milk for a thicker, richer gravy with more body.
• Serve with scrambled eggs on the side. The creamy eggs and peppery gravy play off each other beautifully.

Variations

• Spicy sausage gravy: Use hot Italian sausage or add a pinch of cayenne and cracked black pepper to the gravy.
• Mushroom sausage gravy: Sauté sliced mushrooms in the drippings before adding the flour for an earthy twist.
• Homemade biscuits: Skip the mix and make buttermilk biscuits from scratch with cold butter for flaky layers that soak up every drop.