Drop Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Late Saturday afternoon, after Marlboro Man had returned home with the soccer-playing girls, and I had returned home with the soccer-playing boys, and after our three bottle calves were given their bottles and I washed the last dirty dish in the mountain of dishes I’d left piled in the sink when I left the house Saturday morning, I decided to make biscuits and sausage gravy.

It turned out to be a good decision.

I posted a biscuits and gravy recipe in the very, very early days of this website—back when I thought it was advisable to get so close to the food with my camera that sometimes you couldn’t tell what the food was. In that tutorial, I fried sausage patties and removed them from the skillet before making the gravy and serving the two components separately. That’s how I frequently make biscuits and gravy around here.

The gravy I made Saturday, however, was true sausage gravy, which I prefer to the regular kind. I like it partly because it’s easy: You just crumble and cook the sausage, then make the gravy right on top of it. But I also prefer it because the gravy is just dang darn ding dadgum good: Chock full of sausage wonderfulness and an amazing texture and heartiness.

Either way you make it, just keep in mind that biscuits and gravy should be eaten only once every nineteen years or so. It’s delightfully filling!

Start by making the biscuits, and while I sometimes like to use the food processor, it works fine to use a pastry cutter and mix them by hand. Unless you’re feeling lazy, which I was Saturday when I made these drop biscuits.

Anyway, start with flour.

Then baking powder, and just look at what happened next…

It landed square on the middle of the top of the blade!

“Square on the middle of the top?”

Good one, Ree. Clear and eloquent as ever.

So then I went looking for symbolism and meaning in the fact that the baking powder had landed in a perfect dome shape. Surely it had to be a sign. Maybe I should take my kids to Washington D.C. to see the Capitol? But I wasn’t sure. So I told myself that if the second tablespoon of baking powder landed and stayed on the top of the first perfectly rounded tablespoon, it would be even more of sign.

Okay, so that didn’t go so well.

No Washington D.C. trip for my kids! And it’s all the baking powder’s fault.

You have these inner dialogs with yourself while you bake biscuits too, right?

Oh, whew! Good.

Next, add salt…

Then put the lid on and pulse it to combine.

Next comes a stick and a half of very cold salted butter! Slice it down the middle…

Then turn it and slice it down the middle again…

Then turn it and slice the butter into pieces.

Throw the pieces of butter into the food processor…

And pulse it until the butter is all worked into the flour. At this time, I will choose not to show you the photo of the butter all worked into the flour, because such a photo does not exist, because I am an airhead and was thinking about something I can’t remember because…well, the airhead thing.

But basically, the flour should look a little like cornmeal once the butter’s worked in.

After that, measure 1 1/4 cup of buttermilk…

And drizzle it in while you pulse.

This is about halfway through the buttermilk…

And this is with all but about a tablespoon of buttermilk added. I just watch, and when the dough comes together and starts moving around the bowl in a big mass, I stop. I don’t want it to be crumbly, but I also don’t want it to be too wet.

Next, DROP (get it?) little clumps of dough on a baking sheet using two spoons.

You can fiddle around with the shape a bit, but I kind of like to go free-form. No two biscuits should look alike!

Sorry to shout!

Throw them into the oven for about 15 minutes or so.

And while they’re baking, you can go ahead and make the gravy!

Sorry to shout!

Grab a pound of breakfast sausage: J.C. Potter, Jimmie Dean, Blue Gold…whatever you’ve got on hand…man.

Slice open the package…

Then tear off little pieces and put them in a single layer in a skillet.

I do this rather than throw the whole package in in one big piece because I want the sausage to be nice and crumbly…and it takes too much elbow grease to break apart the sausage using a spoon.

Brown the sausage until it’s just cooked, and at this point, there are two ways to go about this. You could remove the sausage from the skillet, then make the gravy, then throw the sausage back into the gravy…

Or you can just start making the gravy right away! I’m going to do that, because the sausage didn’t product a whole lot of grease—not really enough to make a good roux—and if I remove the sausage from the pan I’ll be taking a whole lot of much-needed grease with me.

So I started by sprinkling some flour over the sausage…

Probably 3 to 4 tablespoons to start.

Then I stirred the sausage around until it absorbed all the flour.

Next came a little more flour. I wanted to add as much as I could without the sausage getting overly clumpy and dry.

After stirring the flour-coated sausage and cooking it for a minute or so, I poured in a good amount of whole milk.

I do this by feel, but I added a good 4 to 5 cups at the beginning. With the amount of flour I added, I knew it needed this amount of milk.

Gravy intuition, I like to call it.

Cook the gravy, stirring it the whole time, until it just starts to thicken.

Sprinkle in a good amount of black pepper…

And stir it in.

For just a little extra flavor…

Sprinkle in a little seasoned salt.

And hey, why not? A little more black pepper.

And look! The biscuits are done. And they smell divine.

Mmmm. It’s getting thick. Nice and thick and gravyish. If it gets too thick before you’re ready to serve it, just splash in a little milk. Gravy is very forgiving that way.

Ahhh. It looks…perfect.

TO SERVE

Now, serving biscuits and gravy is a very personal thing. You can stack one biscuit on top of the other…

 

And grab a nice, hot spoonful of gravy…

And spoon it right over the biscuits.

Holy…geewillikers.

Another way to serve it up is to tear a biscuit or two into pieces…

And arrange them on a plate.

Then spoon the gravy all over the top.

This is how Marlboro Man likes it.

(An extra hit of black pepper is mandatory.)

 

I think it’s also fun to serve it this way, with the gravy in a ramekin next to the biscuits. You can dip the biscuits and eat them that way, or the person you serve it to can pour the gravy over the biscuits—whatever they want!

However you serve it, enjoy. This is a good one.

Here’s the handy dandy printable.

Recipe

Drop Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Prep Time:

10 Minutes

Difficulty:

Easy

Cook Time:

30 Minutes

Servings:

12 Servings

Ingredients

• Biscuits
• 3 cups All-purpose Flour
• 2 Tablespoons Baking Powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1-1/2 stick (3/4 Cup) Cold Butter, Cut Into Pieces
• 1-1/4 cup Butermilk
• SAUSAGE GRAVY
• 1 pound Breakfast Sausage, Hot Or Mild
• 1/3 cup All-purpose Flour
• 4 cups Whole Milk
• 1/2 teaspoon Seasoned Salt
• 2 teaspoons Black Pepper, More To Taste

Instructions

BISCUITS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Add flour, baking powder, and salt to the bowl of a food processor (or a large bowl.) Add butter pieces and pulse until butter is completely cut into the flour mixture (or use a pastry cutter if using a bowl.) While pulsing (or stirring) drizzle in the buttermilk until dough just comes together and is no longer crumbly.

Drop in clumps on two baking sheets, then bake for 15-17 minutes, or until golden brown. (Optional: Brush with melted butter when biscuits first come out of the oven.)

SAUSAGE GRAVY

With your finger, tear small pieces of sausage and add them in a single layer to a large heavy skillet. Brown the sausage over medium-high heat until no longer pink. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Sprinkle on half the flour and stir so that the sausage soaks it all up, then add a little more until just before the sausage looks too dry. Stir it around and cook it for another minute or so, then pour in the milk, stirring constantly.

Cook the gravy, stirring frequently, until it thickens. (This may take a good 10-12 minutes.) Sprinkle in the seasoned salt and pepper and continue cooking until very thick and luscious. If it gets too thick too soon, just splash in 1/2 cup of milk or more if needed. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Spoon sausage gravy over warm biscuits and serve immediately!