Make-Ahead Gravy For A Big Group
Making gravy ahead of your big family gatherings like Christmas or Thanksgiving is a very smart move. To make a good gravy does take time and the last thing you want to be doing when all your food is ready is struggling to make that perfect gravy.
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More importantly, gravy is one of the key ingredients that will set your dish apart.
Make a bad gravy and nobody will enjoy your meal on the reverse make a fantastic gravy and you will knock your socks off your guests. They will be talking about it for months. How many times have you gone to a restaurant and had some amazing chicken wings or another dish where the sauce was the key reason you really loved the restaurant experience.
Many times you may not have actually realized until you started thinking about how good was the dinner and then he realized chicken is chicken or steak a steak they can all be cooked well it was the sauce that took it to a whole new level. That is why making gravy is so important.
The good this it is not too difficult to do it all ahead of time.
How to Make Gravy Ahead of Time
Let’s say we are going to make turkey gravy out of time but this method works equally well for chicken or beef just remember to get a bit of flavor from each of the key protein ingredients by following this method.
Step 1
Get some turkey offcuts like wings or if you have even less time buy some reserved turkey fat for flavor from your local market.
If you have some wings or offcuts roast them at 425F for approximately 90 minutes with vegetables like carrot celery and garlic. Roast them until they are well browned so that you can see the flavor is coming out. Do not discard any drippings because that will give extra flavor to the gravy.
Step 2
Transfer this mix to a large pot and add in 2 to 3 cups of stock or bone broth. Put the pot over medium heat and bring to a boil and then simmer. Make sure you continue to stir I use a wooden spoon so that you blend all the brown bits and get the flavor out of them into the stock you are making
Simmer for around 90 minutes.
Step 3
Using a strainer pour your pot of stock mix through the strainer so that all the large bits are separated. You can now put your freshly made stock in the fridge and let it cool.
Let it cool you will get a layer of fat which you can remove but make sure you keep as much as the jelly because that’s where a lot of the flavor resides.
Step 4
The next step is to make a flour and fat mix which is often called a roux. Take around half a cup of the stock you make and mix it with flour in a pan over medium heat. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes to cook out the flour so you lose that flour taste.
Step 5
Once the roux is mixed evenly so there are no lumps of flour left you are ready to make the gravy.
Now gently and slowly pour back in mixing all the time the rest of your stock that you have made. Cook it until it comes to a boil if it is too thick you can add a little more stock or water so if you get the gravy to the right consistency.
From here your gravy is now made ahead of time and is ready to be stored. See your post on how to freeze and store gravy.
While we have been talking about turkey gravy here, you can use this method to make beef, lamb, or chicken gravy by the same method. Making gravy ahead of time lets you focus on cooking your other ingredients really well.
Result if you have made a fantastic meal for a large family gathering.