This recipe is so mouthwatering and delicious. It doesn’t take long to make, is not high in nutrients, but not bad for you either. This recipe is vegetarian, but can easily be made vegan or with meat and still taste great.
Creates about 4 servings
Ingredients:
– Ready to bake biscuits. Any brand works, but my favorite is Immaculate Honestly Delicious Organic Flaky Biscuits
– Half a tube of Lightlife Gimme Lean Plantbased Veggie Sausage, broken up into bits. FieldRoast Apple Sage sausage works great too. Cut two links into quarter moons. If you eat meat then feel free to use regular sausage.
– 3 TBSP of unrefined flour
– Approximately 4 TBSP of butter. Either Earth Balance or Kerrigold’s Grassfed Cow butter is best for this recipe.
– 6 Crimini mushrooms or 1 portobello mushroom
– 1 Yellow onion
– 4 Cloves of garlic
– 1 Bay leaf
– 2 Sprigs of fresh thyme, half a tsp of dried, and/or poultry seasoning (I’ll go into more detail about this in the recipe)
– Veggie broth or vegetable bouillon. I prefer low sodium veggie broth so I can control the salt content.
– Cayenne pepper
– Salt and pepper
You will need a large pan or a medium sized pot. Preferably a cast iron skillet. Also, a baking tray for the biscuits.
Instructions
- Set your stove burner to light heat with your pan on the burner with 2 TBSP of butter in it. While the pan begins to warm up and melt the butter and dice your onion and peeled garlic cloves. Toss the diced onion and garlic into the pan and turn the heat up slightly until you can hear the garlic and onion sizzling slightly. Add a pinch of salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper.
- The fresh thyme or dried thyme adds flavor and helps make your gravy aesthetically pleasing. You can use just the thyme, or if you don’t have any on hand poultry seasoning works great too. Or use both 😉
Most of the flavor will be coming from the onions, garlic, mushrooms, sausage, roux, and both. The herbs are to add a little aromatic flavor. If you are using dried thyme or poultry seasoning add it to the pan now. If using fresh, wait. - While the diced onion and garlic sauté, get your mushrooms ready. Pull the mushroom stems out and toss away. To wash the mushrooms wet two to three at a time quickly (barely get them wet) and dry off immediately with a paper towel and get any dirt off. Once cleaned, slice the mushrooms. I prefer thin slices. It really does not matter how you cut them. If you love mushroom chunks in soups and stews make the slices wider if you’d like.
- Once the mushrooms are ready add them into the pan with the sautéed onion and garlic. Stir the mushrooms. They will soak in the juices from the onion, butter, and season. Still on a light sizzle, let them sizzle and stir occasionally for 5 minutes. Preheat the oven for the biscuits.
- Add the remaining butter, stir. Add the flour slowly. 1 TBSP at a time. After adding one table spoon, stir, and continue until you use all of the flour. Stir to create a smooth, blond roux. (Roux is a cooked equal mixture of flour and fat.)
- Stir the roux continuously for about 6 minutes. Now we can begin to thicken the roux and get ready to add the sausage. If you are using bouillon, add the bouillon now, mix it into the roux, and use water in place of broth. If you are using broth (my preference), slowly add the broth in increments. Add about a half of a cup, and stir to smooth it out. Do not add too much at once. It will cause the roux to clump. After thickening the gravy up a bit (after adding and mixing about four times) add the sausage. Stir. Keep adding broth/water until desired consistency. Add the bay leaf. Turn the heat down to low and let sit.
- Add the biscuits into the oven. While the biscuits cook, let the gravy sit on low heat. The longer it sit the better it will taste. It tastes even better as leftovers the next day.
- When the biscuits are finished take them out of the oven. While they cool off taste test your gravy to check if it needs more salt or pepper. TAAT (taste, analyze, adjust, taste). I really like my gravy spicy, so sometimes I add extra cayenne.
- When the gravy is ready, pour a spoonful or two over two biscuits and serve. Bon appétit!
Ten years ago I never thought that I would ever love, or even try, biscuits and gravy. I attended Le Cordon Bleu, Seattle, from 2012 – 2013. I was the only vegetarian student out of a class of about nine. I had two different instructors; Chef Kim and Chef Mah. Chef Kim and I ended up clicking over gaming because I saw that he decorated his binder with the logo from The Guild. Chef Mah kind of gave me crap for being vegetarian at first (he gave everyone a hard time for something and was ultra blunt), until steak day happened. He told me “how are you going to know how it tastes if you won’t try it?” (the steak). I said “I’ve had steak before, and it’s something that you should just know. It’s not like a chef in a kitchen can taste test a steak before putting it on the window to serve anyway.” He smiled. He and Chef Kim are so cool. I learned so much from them both, and not just about cooking. That’s a whole other story.
Anyway, in Chef Kim’s class he told us that our next cooking day we are going to do biscuits and gravy. I was not looking forward to this at first to be honest. On my way out he told me to bring some veggie sausage to class if I’d like and that it’s very good without meat too. I went to Trader Joe’s after class and picked some up (the one in the ingredients list. I’m very picky with plant-based meat and the ingredients used to make it). When I cooked it and tried it I was blown away! Oh the flavor and texture was incredible! I devoured it. Everyone else in class tried it too and were pleasantly surprised how and turned out and loved it.
            For my 28th birthday I went to King George, VA, to spend my mom’s birthday with her (her birthday is the day after mine). She asked what I wanted to do. I wanted to go out to brunch for shrimp and grits, chill, cook my biscuits and gravy recipe, and just play board games with friends. I was going through a lot at the time, and really didn’t want to do anything out and around a lot of people. She said “whaaat? Biscuits and gravy? That’s a breakfast dish.” I told her that you can eat it anytime, anywhere, and that’s what I want. She wanted the recipe to cook it because she didn’t want me to do anything on my birthday. I politely declined because it HAD to be my recipe and my way of cooking it on my birthday, plus I love to cook. My friend Kyle came over, and he’s born and raised in VA. My mom told him what I was making in a tone that pretty much said “please talk her out of this”. When he heard what I was making his eyes lit up and he exclaimed “OO biscuits and gravy?!”. My mom had a perplexed look and looked at my sister (my sister was in the same boat at my mom) with a “we just can’t win” look haha. My mom asked Kyle “isn’t biscuits and gravy a breakfast dish?”. He responded “biscuits and gravy is life.” I agreed and laughed so hard.
I cooked it, and my mom and sister tried it for the first time. Long story short there were no leftovers. They loved it! I have had many friends ask for the recipe and I am finally creating a blog for it to share with everyone. This dish is so comforting, delicious, and honestly surprisingly not ultra heavy. I usually like to eat it with a side of greens, especially brussel sprouts or broccoli.
I do sometimes switch it up a bit and use field roast sausage. Other friends that I’ve made this for that eat meat said “this is biscuits with a flavor explosion gravy.” If you double the gravy recipe it does freeze well. Reheat it in a pot and add a bit of broth or water. I can and do like to make homemade buttermilk biscuits, but I’m usually pretty busy. The fast way is also delicious. If I’m lucky and live somewhere where there’s a bakery or grocery store that makes scrumptious homemade biscuits I love picking some up for the gravy recipe. I’ll share my homemade biscuits recipe in the future.
Let me know how you all enjoy this recipe. I hope that you like it!
Ciao xoxo,
Loretta Falco
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