We really love breakfast gravy, guys — and we're not the only ones. This smooth, velvety combination of sausage and a flour-thickened milky sauce is one half of that has graced breakfast tables since the late 1800s. What looks like a basic combo of meat and gravy, however, can be mind-bogglingly difficult to get right.
There's a surprisingly high margin of error when making breakfast gravy, and getting it wrong with some rookie errors is all too common. Breakfast gravy's short ingredients list means that you need to ensure that every component is handled just right, otherwise, your errors become even more obvious. Take the sausage, for example: It's not enough to just throw it in the pan and hope for the best.
Fail to brown it properly, use the wrong type of sausage, or mash it too vigorously, and you're in for a disappointing breakfast lacking in flavor and with a poor texture. The gravy, meanwhile, may cook quickly, but treat your flour poorly or fail to season it properly, and you're left with a lumpy, tasteless mess. 1.
Mistake: Using poor-quality sausage Your sausage will take up a large proportion of your gravy's flavor profile and fill it with salty, savory notes. It also adds the much-needed bite that prevents this gravy from becoming gloopy and insipid. Unfortunately, too many people think that they can expect good results from poor products; often, they'll use a poor-quality or cheap sausage in their gravy — and are then surprised when it doesn't taste good.
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