Great Gravy, No Meat Needed
Bold ingredients, deeply browned, ensure a flavorful vegetable gravy.
Skip the drippings for an all-purpose gravy suited to any table
Gravy made from the drippings of roasted meats may be traditional, but that doesn’t make it great by default. Depending on the flavors at play, those drippings can leave a gravy tasting fatty and heavy. It also excludes any vegetarians from ladling it on.
But too often the alternative— vegetarian gravies—fall flat, tasting mostly of dull boxed vegetable broth. Instead, we wanted a vegetable-based gravy that tastes light and vivid, but doesn’t sacrifice any savory richness. We also knew that vegetables, when properly prepared, can deliver all the rich flavor we need.
We began by focusing on high-flavor ingredients—tomato paste, miso and soy sauce. We used those to elevate a basic homemade vegetable broth (not from a box). Aggressively browning these ingredients in stages took their umami to a new level. After thickening the mixture with a little flour, we deglazed the pan with white wine. Once the mixture reduced, we strained the liquid from the solids, yielding a surprisingly meaty gravy—no turkey-roasting required.
Shaula Clark
Shaula Clark is a Boston-based writer and editor. Her six-year stint as managing editor of Milk Street’s magazine absolutely leveled up her cooking game—though her trusty canine sous chef, Roxie the Schipperke, remains unimpressed unless cheese is involved. In the kitchen, she likes to get weird, with experiments yielding both great success (absinthe sorbet) and dismal failure (liquid smoke-infused rice paper “bacon”). Thanks to a terrifyingly productive tomato garden, Milk Street’s salmorejo—a luscious Andalusian tomato soup—has become a particular favorite recipe. She is, for the record, also staunchly pro-ketchup. Disagreements over her stance on condiments may be sent to .
