Let’s be clear: There is no one perfect homemade biscuits and gravy recipe. The Southern comfort food, typically served at breakfast, comes with a hefty dose of nostalgia and controversy. Many folks from the American South will attest that their family makes the best biscuits. Some swear only White Lily flour can be used as the base of the flour mixture; others have strong opinions about butter versus lard and how the dough should be shaped. And there are those for whom only Jimmy Dean pork sausage will do in their gravy. In short: biscuits and gravy is personal. Our recipe turns out warm flaky biscuits and a rich creamy gravy.
If it’s your first time making biscuits, don’t let all this scare you off. The technique is simple: Repeatedly folding and rolling the biscuit dough yields lots of flaky individuated layers that pull apart neatly when you eat them. While buttermilk biscuits may be the most iconic variety, this recipe replaces the buttermilk with a mixture of sour cream and whole milk, which means it’s easy to throw together on a whim, even if you don’t keep buttermilk on hand.
As for the homemade sausage gravy (sometimes called sawmill gravy), breakfast sausage adds flavor and its fat helps bring the gravy together on the stovetop. While you can store leftover gravy in an airtight container and reheat it, it’s best the day it’s made, so don’t hold back when serving.
Watch Bon Appetit food director Chris Morocco try to reverse engineer Edna Lewis’s buttermilk biscuits and gravy from taste and find more breakfast recipes like hash browns and a no-flip blueberry pancake made in a large skillet.