This Indiana boy grew up eating biscuits & gravy, and while it's more of a treat now, I can still enjoy it by making a few little changes. The Southern Vegan Cream Gravy is easy to make and great for those times you want a little comfort-food taste of home.
It's a simple recipe actually, requiring only a few basic ingredients. Whole wheat flour, unsweetened plant milk, a little seasoning, and my secret ingredient that makes it so thick and velvety, which is.....
Potato Flakes
Not those packages of instant potatoes you see in the store (although they probably would work in a pinch). Those are full of weird ingredients and have oil - not to mention a TON of sodium, so not the healthiest choice.
No, I'm talking about plain, old-fashioned potato flakes where the ONLY ingredient is dehydrated potatoes.
I realize not everyone will have access to the brands that I do living here in Oregon, but check your stores and see if they have one with just potatoes listed as the ingredient. Bob's Red Mill is one such brand and no, this is not a paid endorsement, I just like their products.
If you can't find any I will add my Amazon Link below. Remember that as an affiliate I do earn a small commission on each sale but at no extra cost to you.
Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/3nKRjZJ
I have used these many times to thicken a soup or stew, and now I use them to thicken my gravy. Kinda ironic isn't it? We all pour gravy ON our potatoes and now we are putting the potatoes IN our gravy? Anyway, it works.
Before we get started - I'm sure there will be a million questions asking if this can be made gluten-free. All I can say is - try it and report back in the comments. I am not gluten-intolerant so I honestly do not know.
And if you're asking for the biscuit recipe - I'll add that link right here.
Otherwise, I hope you enjoy the recipe whether you'll pour it over biscuits, potatoes, or even toast. And if this reminds you in any way of your favorite childhood memories, please let me know in the comments below. Mine would be walking down to the corner grill every morning before school to meet my mom and have biscuits & gravy for breakfast.
Miss you mom.
Southern Vegan Cream Gravy
So we are going to start with a DRY skillet or pan. No oil, no water, no veggie broth, nothing.
We're going to mix all our dry ingredients (listed below in the recipe box) together and add them to the pan and gently add heat. Gently stir it over low to medium heat until it starts to smell like someone is making toast.
Do not let it burn, do not walk away, it'll only take a few minutes at most.
Have 2 cups of your favorite unsweetened plant milk standing by. To give the gravy a little sodium and umami flavor, stir a tablespoon of low-sodium tamari (or soy sauce) into the milk before adding it to the pan.
When your dry mix smells like toast - add your milk mixture and whisk. Be sure to whisk away any dry patches of flour and/or lumps (no one likes lumpy gravy).
You can increase the heat just to a simmer, but we're not looking for a full rolling boil here. Just enough for the gravy to begin to thicken, and then we can stir in our potato flakes.
Note: Some plant-based milk products are thicker than others. For instance, when I made this with unsweetened Almond Milk I only needed ¼ cup of potato flakes. But when I used oat milk I needed an additional 2 tablespoons....so feel free to adjust the amount of potato flakes as needed. They are, after all, JUST potatoes - unless you are using instant potatoes - then be careful.
Now you just cook your gravy to the consistency you like. I like mine extra thick but you may not, totally up to you. If you get it TOO thick just stir in a little more plant milk.
That's the recipe for the week and I hope you enjoy it.
And for all my friends out there celebrating Thanksgiving this week, I know it may be a different kind of Thanksgiving than we are used to this year (thanks again 2020) but I do hope you find ways to enjoy it. And if you do gather with family - please be safe.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Southern Vegan Cream Gravy
- Prep Time: 10 min
- Cook Time: 20 min
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 2 ½ cups 1x
- Category: Sauce, Dip, Gravy
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
The Southern Vegan Cream Gravy is easy to make and great for those times you want a little comfort-food taste of home.
Ingredients
- ¼ cup whole wheat flour
- 1 Tbs nutritional yeast
- 1 ½ tsp rubbed sage (not the powder)
- ½ tsp onion powder
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- ¼ tsp thyme
- 2 cups unsweetened plant milk (oat, almond, soy)
- 1 Tbs low-sodium tamari (or soy sauce)
- 2-4 Tbs dehydrated potato flakes as needed to thicken
- Additional salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
- Whisk all the dry ingredients together EXCEPT the potato flakes
- Pour the dry mix into a DRY skillet or pan (no oil, broth, or water)
- Gently toast the dry mix until it smells like...TOAST
- Whisk the tamari into the milk and gently pour into pan
- Whisk to remove any lumps
- Bring to a simmer and add potato flakes
- Gently stir until thickened
Sheri
Another winner Chuck! I made this today to put on my grits. I added 1/4. tsp ground fennel to give it a sausage flavor! So thick and delicious!! Thank you!!
K Golden
Made this for Thanksgiving, yesterday. Substituted chickpea flour as I did not have whole wheat. It turned out so well that I had to make a second batch. Very hard to believe it was made without any fats or oils. Another "keeper" recipe. Honestly, every one of your recipes that I have tried, I will make again. Thank you for all of them.
Ken
I made this recipe this morning to determine if this gravy will work for me on mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving. It is very good. I think it will be even better next time. It turns out I only had 1 cup of almond milk, so I used a cup of soy milk with it. But the soy milk is sweetened (my wife bought it by mistake). So there is a slight hint of sweetness that doesn't belong in cream gravy! It should be a little more savory next time and even better. But sometimes, we have to roll with what we have!
Rosemary G
RUBBED sage but not powder?? I thought it only came in powder form. What do I look for? TIA
Chuck Underwood
it will say rubbed sage on the container
Jayne Mitchell
I’m sure any sage would work…it’s flavor is what we’re looking for!
Jay
Soooo good!
Cedars
Although this will fall into my rare and appropriate food list, I am so thrilled to have Christmas Breakfast back. My Dad was from the south, taught me the wonders of Biscuits and Gravy. Thank you so very much!
Celine Spotts
This will go great with my UNsausage recipe......sausage gravy and biscuits......yum
Susan Dilger
Christmas Breakfast! So delicious..... I mixed in some tofu sausage I had in the freezer and served on the biscuits. Divine! Thank you Chuck!
Dustin
Looks so yum! Wow! This is really a great blog. Thank you so much for this recipe.
Keith Adair
SO DELICIOUS CHUCK!!!! JUST MADE IT EXACTLY AS YOU STATED. I NEVER THOUGHT I COULD HAVE MILK GRAVY AGAIN...BOY WAS I WRONG!!!
Cloudy Rockwell
Chuck, thanks so much for this recipe! I've been frustrated at all the nut-filled sauce recipes! The last thing I need is more fat! This was delicious and a huge hit at my lockdown, lonely Thanksgiving with my turkey-eating spouse. He loved it on the mashed potatoes! I love it on a lot of things!
Cloudy
I can't edit, so I'm adding a clarification: most plant=based recipes I see for sauces are cashew-based, etc., and yours are not! I also want to say that your Amazing Vegan Cheese sauce is absolutely wonderful!
Christina
I use brown rice flour in all of my gravy recipes instead of wheat flour. 1:1. It doesn’t lump like wheat flour and you can add it to the hot liquid—if needed to thicken a bit more—and just whisk it in. Easy easy and we don’t notice the difference.
Dorcas Kosche
My mom and dad were both from Indiana. So you know I have to try this. I have a recipe for low fat gumbo that uses the same technique as you. Toasting the dry ingredients gives it the darkened roux without the oil. I'm going to try this with your tuna casserole, only try to just do the tuna part and put it on toast smothered in gravy. Like you know what on a shingle. Lol. Thanks so much for the recipe. So many of your recipes are more about substitutions and technique and we can utilize them and go ahead and run with them to our liking and cultures.
Franklin Colbert
I can attest to toasting flour for healthier roux. I heat an oven to 400f and toast for an hour to hour and a half in a Dutch oven stirring every 15 minutes or so. I usually do 4 cups at a time and save in a quart Mason jar.
Cloudy Rockwell
Franklin, what a good idea! I'm going to make a supply of toasted flour (& seasonings) so I don't have to make a huge batch unless I need it.
Margie Sutej
Would this recipe work with gluten free flour instead?
MOS
Copied directly from the post: "Before we get started – I’m sure there will be a million questions asking if this can be made gluten-free. All I can say is – try it and report back in the comments. I am not gluten-intolerant so I honestly do not know."
Christina Rodriguez
One of the things I like the most about your recipes is that they bring back food we have all enjoyed growing up and made them healthy. So it gives us that familiar comfort hit. Thank you for all that you do. Have a very blessed Thanksgiving.