Turkey gravy is a common accompaniment to roast turkey dinners, a thick and flavorful sauce which pairs well with turkey meat, potatoes, and stuffing. It is simple to make a gravy at home to accompany a turkey, with more flavor and less salt than the gravies which come out of a packet.

Ingredients

***For the Stock***
Turkey neck and trimmings
1 white onion
2 ribs celery
2 carrots
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp vegetable oil
salt to taste
black pepper to taste

The turkey flavor for gravies generally comes from at least one of two sources—turkey stock and turkey drippings. My personal preference is to use turkey stock to build the gravy, for the simple reason that turkey stock can be made a day in advance using the parts of the turkey we are not roasting, while we won’t have access to turkey drippings until the bird is out of the oven and resting. Collecting and separating the drippings would be yet another task to complete in the last hour before dinner service, when our cooking schedule will likely be packed full of other things to do.

To make our stock, begin by browning our turkey pieces in a large stock pot, with a small amount of vegetable oil. Browning meat prior to making a soup or stock helps add those roast flavors to the final broth. Once the meat is browned, add our roughly chopped aromatics: the onion, celery, carrots, and bay leaf. Pour in enough water to cover the ingredients. Then bring to a boil and simmer, covered, for 90 minutes.

After 90 minutes, we should have successfully extracted nearly all the flavor and fat from our ingredients. Strain the stock, season with salt and pepper to taste, and chill it in the refrigerator. I like to do this the day before service, but you really only have to chill sufficiently for the fat to separate and solidify, which will take about 3 hours.

Ingredients

***For the Gravy***
4 cups turkey stock
⅓ cup white flour
⅓ cup turkey fat
salt to taste
black pepper to taste

When it comes time to make the gravy, skim the solidified turkey fat off the top of the stock. We need about a third of a cup for the gravy—reserve the rest for another use. We will use the turkey fat, together with the flour, to build a roux to thicken the gravy. If you don’t have enough fat from the stock, you can supplement this fat with butter.

Melt the turkey fat in a saucepan over medium heat. Once the fat is hot, add the flour and stir immediately. We want to cook this roux to the white stage—a smooth paste in which the flour is no longer raw, but before the roux starts to take on color.[1] This should take approximately 5 minutes, whisking constantly.

Once the roux has reached this stage, pour in the cold turkey stock and whisk vigorously, breaking up any lumps of flour. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, and simmer until thickened and smooth, about 5 minutes. We are looking for nappe consistency, when a sauce will coat the back of a spoon. If the gravy is too thick, thin it out by adding more stock. If the gravy is too thin, you can thicken it up using beurre manié or a cornstarch slurry. Keep in mind that as a roux-based dish, gravy will continue to thicken as it cools. When you reach the desired consistency, season with salt and a generous amount of black pepper, remove from the heat and serve hot.[2]

A note on color: poultry gravies (chicken and turkey) will always be much lighter in color than brown gravies, which are built on beef or veal stock. If you would like your gravy to have a darker color, an easy hack is to stir in half a teaspoon of dark soy sauce. This adds practically no flavor, but a great deal of color.

[1] The longer you cook a roux, the more color and flavor it develops, but the less thickening power it has. The four stages of roux are: white, blond, brown, and brick.

[2] If you are preparing gravy (or any other temperature sensitive sauce) ahead of service, a great trick for keeping the sauce at its ideal service temperature and consistency is to keep it in an insulated bottle.

Substitutions

This recipe works well with chicken or vegetable stock as well, either homemade or store-bought. You can use butter instead of turkey fat, or in addition to turkey fat, when building your roux.

If you would like to add giblets to the gravy, simmer giblets in a separate pan in stock for 30-40 minutes, until tender. Then chop finely and mix into the gravy. Fresh herbs such as chives or thyme also work well as a mix-in ingredient to gravy, as does cooked sausage.

Recipe

Prep Time: 5 min Cook Time: 1 hr 20 min Total Time: 1 hr 25 min
(+3 hrs inactive) (4 hrs 25 min)

Difficulty: 1/5

Heat Sources: 1 burner

Equipment: stock pot, saucepan, whisk

Servings: 12

Ingredients

For the Stock
Turkey neck and trimmings
1 white onion
2 ribs celery
2 carrots
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp vegetable oil

For the Gravy
4 cups turkey stock
⅓ cup white flour
⅓ cup turkey fat
salt to taste
black pepper to taste

Instructions

1. To make turkey stock, brown the turkey neck and trimmings in vegetable oil in a large pot.

2. Roughly chop the onion, celery, and carrots, and add them to the pot, together with a bay leaf. Cover with water and bring to a boil.

3. Simmer, covered, for 90 minutes. Remove from heat, strain, and chill.

4. To make the gravy, skim about ⅓ cup of turkey fat from the chilled stock. Melt this fat in a saucepan. Once the fat is hot, add the flour and whisk, forming a roux. Cook until the flour is no longer raw, about 5 minutes.

5. Add 4 cups of turkey stock to the saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes, whisking until smooth.

6. Season to taste with salt and black pepper, and serve.