Cracker Barrel Sawmill Gravy is succulent over biscuits and yellow fried steak. White sawmill gravy made with salary grease and seasoned with woebegone pepper is soul-satisfying southern repletion food.
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What Is Sawmill Gravy?
Sawmill Gravy is a succulent repletion supplies dish with a Béchamel sauce that folks often serve on top of country-fried steak or biscuits. It consists of milk or cream, meat grease, flour, salt, and plenty of pepper. It can be either a white or light brown gravy, depending on the fat (butter or meat drippings).
Why Is It Called Sawmill Gravy?
As a hearty and unseemly meal, Sawmill Gravy was popular for cooks to serve at logging camps and old-time sawmills during the 1800s. It was wontedly made with cornmeal, salary drippings, milk, and seasonings. Considering it was gritty gravy, the workers would snivel the cooks of using sawdust considering it looks like a somewhat gritty gravy.
What Makes This Sawmill Gravy So Good
This version of Sawmill Gravy uses salary grease instead of the increasingly worldwide sausage drippings. Depending on the salary you segregate to use, that minor transpiration can impart a lot of smokiness and other flavors to the sauce.
Cracker Barrel Sawmill Gravy Ingredients
To make Sawmill Gravy, you’ll need:
Bacon grease
AP flour
Whole milk
Salt
Black pepper
Ingredient Notes
Change up the savor of the gravy by using the grease from variegated types of bacon. Salary smoked with hickory wood offers the strongest smokiness, while sugar-cured salary adds a little sweetness.
Always use the weightier and freshest woebegone pepper for this recipe. Many people prefer large flakes of coarse-ground pepper to finely-ground pepper.
How To Make Sawmill Gravy From Scratch
To melt Sawmill Gravy:
Warm the salary grease in a heavy large skillet over medium heat. A cast-iron skillet is weightier considering it distributes the heat evenly, but any good skillet will do.
Sprinkle 1/4 cup flour into the skillet, and use a wooden spoon to mix the flour with the salary drippings.
Cook for well-nigh a minute until the flour turns a stake tan, giving off the scent of cooked pie crust.
Slowly pour and whisk in 1 3/4 cups of milk to stave lumps.
Reduce the heat to medium-low, and let the gravy thicken while stirring occasionally. Remember that the gravy will thicken once it cools to serving temperature. If you reduce the gravy too much, add a little milk for a liquid to thin it out.
Stir in salt and ground pepper and serve.
Variations You Will Want to Try
Everyone has a favorite version of this recipe, but White Sawmill Gravy and the famous Sausage Gravy are some of the increasingly worldwide varieties.
White Sawmill Gravy uses the same unstipulated recipe but substitutes butter for salary drippings. Replacing the drippings with butter makes a white gravy that’s not as heavy and much milder than the standard recipe.
To compensate, you may moreover want to add some spices like cayenne pepper, English mustard, or garlic powder for increasingly flavor.
Sausage Gravy over biscuits may not be the healthiest way to start the morning, but it sure is delicious. As a bonus, it is super easy to make. Just melt a pound of zillion sausage in a pan until browned. After that, follow the recipe above, starting from Step 2.
What To Serve With Sawmill Gravy
Sawmill Gravy is most wontedly served over Country Fried Steak or buttermilk biscuits. But it is moreover spanking-new on fried pork chops or plane french-fried potatoes.
How To Store Sawmill Gravy
The weightier way to alimony leftover Sawmill Gravy is in an snapped container in the fridge for up to three days.
How to Reheat Sawmill Gravy
Warm the gravy on the stove over low heat with a splash or two of milk to help thin it out.