For me, gravy is the most important part of a festive meal. Therefore in our family we always make sure that a. it is delicious and b. there is always a lot of it! This recipe shows you step by step how to make your own make ahead German Gravies with or without using any drippings.
Table of Contents
Recipe
Classic German Roast Gravy
- 20 g butter
- 20 g all-purpose flour
- 10 g tomato puree
- 150 ml dry red wine
- 400 ml beef fond or high quality beef broth without salt
- salt
- pepper
- 200 ml cream optional
- additional seasonings rosemary, thyme, oregano, mustard, horseradish
- Melt the butter in a medium pot. Turn the heat to medium and add the flour. Mix butter and flour together by using a whisk and cook until the mixture turns light brown. Don't forget to keep on stirring.
- Add tomato puree and cook for 1 minute. Add red wine very slowly and keep stirring the mixture.
- Add beef fond, and stir. Turn the heat to medium-high and wait until the mixture starts boiling.
- Turn the heat to low and let the gravy simmer for at least 20 minutes. At this point your gravy is ready for drippings or storage.
- If you are not using any drippings add cream and additional seasonings.
Classic German Gingerbread Gravy
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 onions
- 400 ml fond for Sauerbraten I would use beef fond, for poultry I would use poultry (chicken or duck) fond
- 80 g german gingerbread I am using Soßenlebkuchen from Weiss
- 200 ml dry red wine
- salt
- Chop the onions finely.
- Melt the butter in a medium pot on medium heat. Add the chopped onions. Fry for 3 minutes.
- Pour the wine. Turn the heat to medium-high and wait 3 minutes until the alcohol evaporates. Add the fond, bring it to a boil and simmer.
- Cut the gingerbread into small cubes and add to the sauce.
- Stir until those combine and the gravy turns smooth. This might take up to 15 minutes.
- Serve with Sauerbraten, roast duck or goose.
- At this Point the gravy is ready. You can can add the drippings right away, or store the gravy either in the fridge or freezer.
- As soon as you add the drippings you can reduce or thicken the gravy. You might wa
Classic German Orange Gravy
- 20 g butter
- 2 onions
- 100 ml dry red wine
- 20 g all-purpose flour
- 400 ml duck or goose fond
- 3 oranges
- 1 tbsp lingonberry jam
- 3 cl Cointreau
- salt
- pepper
- Chop the onions very finely.
- Melt butter on medium heat and fry the onions for 3 minutes.
- Pour the red wine, turn the heat to medium-high and cook the onions for 3 minutes until the alcohol evaporates.
- Turn the heat to medium and add the flour. Cook the roux for 3 minutes. Don't forget to keep on stirring.
- Squeeze to release all of the juice from 2 oranges.
- Pour fond very slowly all over the roux and keep on stirring. Add the orange juice, Cointreau and lingonberry jam.
- I would strongly recommend to reduce it by simmering it for 20-30min.
- Season it with salt, and pepper.
- After this time pour the gravy through the sieve. You are not going to need the onions anymore. At this point your gravy is ready for your drippings. You can also store the gravy in the fridge or freezer until you are ready to use it.
- After adding the drippings don’t forget to season the gravy once again. You can use salt, pepper, or sugar for that.
Classic German Cherry Gravy
- 200 ml sour cherry juice
- 200 ml Porto wine
- Mondamin
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 8 tbsp sour cherries from the glass
- salt
- pepper
- In a small pot pour sour cherry juice, and porto wine. Bring it to a boil and let it boil for 5 minutes on medium-high heat.
- Add the sour cherries.
- Thicken the sauce with Mondamin.
- Season with lemon juice, sugar, salt, and pepper.
Cooking a festive meal for the family can get pretty stressful. And I know what I am talking about! Therefore I like preparing my gravies ahead of time, to make sure that this essential part of the meal turns out as delicious as the rest.
As soon as my make ahead gravy is ready I like adding dripping from the meat I cooked or roasted to it and reduce it for few minutes. But if you don’t have any drippings – don’t worry, gravy is delicious also without the drippings!
Ingredients & Substitutes
Beef fond – if you can buy a good quality beef fond, than go for it! Beef fond is the most important ingredient of the gravy, if it’s not good, the gravy won’t be good neither.
Red wine – also here, please use a dry red wine that you would actually drink.
Tools that might come in handy
Storage & Reheating
Yon can store the gravy for up to 3 days in an airthigt container or bag.
You can freeze the gravy for up to 6 months.
Reaheating is straightforward – you either unpack the frozen product, put it into a pot, and let it warm up over low heat, or you take the gravy out of the freezer and let it unfreeze in the fridge over night.
Variations
If you like gravies that are richer in seasonings you might consider adding few spices to it!
For beef you might want to add chili, paprika powder, rosemary, thyme, tarragon, marjoram, parsley, bay leaf, garlic, mustard or onion.
For lamb – rosemary or garlic.
For poultry – paprika powder, ginger, chili, curry or cayenne pepper. But also rosemary, thyme, coriander and parsley.
For pork – thyme, Majoran, tarragon, chives, parsley or coriander.
