If gravy has turned up in a recipe or caught your eye at the store, here's what you need to use it with confidence and how to choose it, cook it, store it, what to substitute, and 47 recipes to try it in.

What is gravy?

Gravy is a savory sauce built from the browned drippings left in a roasting or frying pan, thickened with starch and loosened with stock until it pours. At its simplest it is fat, flour, and liquid.

What makes it taste of something is the fond, the sticky brown residue a roast or seared cutlet leaves behind.

Most home gravy is pan gravy: you make it in the same pan you cooked the meat in, so nothing of the meat's flavor is wasted. Country-style and cream gravies follow the same logic with milk standing in for stock.

It shows up wherever roasted or fried meat needs a finish, from holiday turkey to a weeknight Succulent Salisbury Steak. It also doubles as the binding sauce in casseroles and pies.

Making Pan Gravy

Start by pouring off most of the fat from the pan, leaving roughly 2 tablespoons plus all the dark fond stuck to the bottom. Set the pan over medium heat and sprinkle in an equal amount of flour.

Whisk and cook that paste for a full minute or two so the raw-flour taste cooks out. This cooked fat-and-flour paste is a roux, and it is what carries the thickening power.

Pour in your stock a little at a time while you whisk, and the gravy will tighten as it comes to a simmer.

The classic ratio is 2 tablespoons fat to 2 tablespoons flour to 1 cup liquid for a sauce that naps a spoon. Want it thinner, add more stock; thicker, simmer it down rather than adding more flour mid-batch.

A real Turkey Breast'N Gravy or Turkey Wings & Gravy leans entirely on this method, scraping every bit of roasted fond into the liquid. Season at the end, after the stock has reduced and concentrated, or you risk a gravy that turns out too salty.

Roux Versus Slurry, and How to Pair It

A roux gravy is cooked flour in fat, whisked in at the start; a slurry is raw starch stirred into cold water and added at the end. Roux gives a rounder, toastier body and is the standard for pan gravy.

A cornstarch slurry, by contrast, sets glossy and translucent and is faster. That suits a quick stir-fry pan sauce, or a gravy you only decide to make at the last minute.

Use cornstarch at about half the weight of flour for the same thickening, and never boil a cornstarch gravy hard or long, since prolonged heat breaks its set and thins it back out.

Match the gravy to the meat. Turkey and chicken drippings want a light stock and maybe a splash of cream, while beef and lamb carry a darker, heartier gravy, as in English Shepherd's Pie where it binds the meat layer under the potato.

The most common mistake is not browning enough. Pale fond makes pale, flat gravy. Let the roast develop real color and deglaze with wine or stock to lift every bit of it.

Substitutes and Quick Fixes

No drippings on hand? Build a gravy from butter and good stock, or melt a spoonful of meat-flavored bouillon into the liquid for backbone. A pan-sauce reduction finished with a knob of cold butter does a similar job without any flour at all.

For thickening swaps, cornstarch or arrowroot stand in for flour, both at roughly half the amount. Arrowroot stays clearer and tolerates acidic liquids better but does not reheat as well.

Lumpy gravy is the usual disaster, and it is fixable: whisk hard, or pour the whole thing through a fine sieve and the lumps stay behind.

Too thin means simmer longer or whisk in a little extra slurry. Too thick takes a splash more warm stock. Greasy gravy, with fat pooling on top, means you started with too much fat, so skim the surface or lay a paper towel flat across it to lift the slick.

Storing Leftover Gravy

Cool gravy quickly and refrigerate it within two hours in a covered container, where it keeps one to two days. It sets to a firm jelly when cold, which is normal, since the gelatin from the stock is doing its job.

Reheat gently over low heat, whisking in a splash of stock or water to bring it back to a pour, because gravy almost always thickens as it sits.

Flour-based gravy freezes acceptably for two to three months but can separate or turn grainy on thawing. Whisking it hard over heat usually pulls it back together.

Cornstarch-thickened gravy freezes poorly and tends to weep, so reach for a flour roux if you know a batch is headed for the freezer. However you store it, bring leftover gravy to a full simmer when reheating, not just warm, for food safety.

Nutrition

Quick facts

Where to find gravy: Gravy is usually found in the canned goods section or aisle of the grocery store or supermarket.

Food group: Gravy is a member of the Soups, Sauces, and Gravies US Department of Agriculture nutritional food group.

In Chinese

卤

British (UK) term

Gravy

en français

la sauce

en español

salsa

How much does gravy weigh?

Amount	Weight
1 cup	233 grams
1 can	291 grams

Related

Soups, Sauces, and Gravies

Recipes using gravy

There are 47 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 47 recipes