The Easy Way to Make Biscuits and Gravy in About 15 Minutes

My mother used to make a white gravy with thinly sliced beef that she got in packages in the deli section of the grocery store. It wasn’t a true chipped beef because it was refrigerated, not dried. She served it over toast or biscuits.

She also made a hamburger gravy, again with a white gravy made with hamburger broken into small chunks and sautéed. She sometimes served that over biscuits but more often over mashed potatoes.

I don’t think it was until I lived in the South that I found sausage and gravy. While in the West we ate a lot of potatoes. In the South, we ate biscuits with our gravy.

Two Ways to Make Biscuits and Gravy

You can make your biscuits from scratch or from a mix. If you use a just-add-water biscuit mix, you don’t have to stop and measure. You don’t have to cut the butter into the flour with a pastry knife. Just add water, form, and bake.

You can also make your gravy from scratch although a just-add-water gravy mix makes it super easy; you can do it on the stovetop. Sauté the burger or sausage and maybe a little onion and add it to the gravy.

Just in case you have the time and patience, here's how to cook the gravy from scratch.

Hamburger Gravy Mix from Scratch

• 1/2 sweet onion, diced
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 cups milk

Directions

1. Sauté the onion and ground beef together in a skillet. Add the salt and pepper. Remove the cooked ground beef and onion and set it aside. Pour all but two to three tablespoons of the fat from the pan.
2. Add the flour to the fat and stir to dissolve. Cook for another minute.
3. Gradually stir in the milk, a little at a time while stirring with a whisk. Continue cooking until the gravy has thickened and is bubbly.
4. Add the meat and onions and serve over biscuits fresh from the oven.

Traditionally, we split the biscuits in half before spooning the gravy over them, but I don’t know that that is important.

Potatoes and Hamburger Gravy

In the West we eat a lot of potatoes. While in the South, we ate biscuits with our gravy.

Where we live there are potato warehouses scattered about like convenance stores. You can stop in and buy a 50-pound box sized, washed, and ready for market for not a lot of money.

By the time we're half-way through the box, they're no longer the best and we throw them out.  Still, it's cheaper than buying lesser potatoes at the grocery store.

When I come home tired and looking for something quick to fix, I’ll often make a quick mashed potatoes and gravy dinner. I’ll steam some veggies or make a tossed salad. I’ll put a potato in the air fryer or cook dried potatoes from a packet.

When I grew up, we called dried potatoes “Sunday potatoes” and as I remember, they weren’t very good. The new flavored dried potatoes are better and certainly convenient.

I use the gravy mixes that we sell at the store. They make excellent gravy and only take water. Occasionally, I'll sauté ground beef to make a hamburger gravy. I like green peas in a white sauce so sometimes I’ll stir frozen green peas into the gravy–when I’m not cooking meat.

I can have a pretty decent dinner together in a half hour.

Related: Biscuits and Eggs for Breakfast

This is a breakfast on biscuits (or English muffins). Load it as you please: bacon, eggs, cheese, and optional fried potatoes. This can be loaded with country gravy.

Any omelet can be loaded with biscuits and country gravy.