Chicken gravy

What it is¶

Chicken gravy sits between a full-blooded brown gravy and a light sauce. A roast chicken gives up a surprising amount of liquid — a mixture of rendered fat, collagen-rich juices and seasoned drippings — and that liquid, thickened lightly, is chicken gravy in its purest form.

Because chicken juices are paler and more delicate, chicken gravy is usually thinner and lighter than beef gravy. Many cooks add a splash of cream or a knob of butter at the end, and it takes very well to herbs: tarragon, thyme, sage or a little lemon zest.

History¶

Roast fowl has been sauced with its own juices for as long as birds have been roasted on spits, with a dripping pan set underneath to catch what fell. The eighteenth-century English kitchen often served roast chicken with bread sauce and gravy, a habit that survives on Christmas tables today.

The American version diverged: chicken gravy in the southern United States is frequently a milk-based white gravy rather than a brown one, made with the fat left from frying chicken. Both traditions are alive, and both are correct on their own terms.

Typical ingredients¶

Flavour profile¶

Savoury but gentle, with a rounded, buttery quality and an almost sweet note from roasted onion. It should taste clearly of chicken rather than of salt. Cream softens it; a squeeze of lemon or a splash of wine lifts it and stops it tasting flat.

What to serve it with¶

Roast chicken and all its trimmings — mash, roast potatoes, stuffing, bread sauce. Also excellent on chicken pie, over a chicken schnitzel, with dumplings, on turkey when you have run out of turkey gravy, and poured into the middle of a bowl of mashed potato in the way children insist upon.

The traditional recipe¶

Serves 4 · 12 minutes

You need

• The roasting tin from a chicken, juices and all
• 1½ tbsp plain flour
• 100 ml dry white wine (optional)
• 500 ml hot chicken stock
• 1 tsp chopped tarragon or thyme
• Salt and white pepper

Method

1. Rest the chicken on a board. Pour the tin contents into a jug and let the fat rise; skim it, returning 2 tbsp of fat to the tin and keeping the dark juices.
2. Set the tin on a low heat, stir in the flour and cook for two minutes.
3. Deglaze with the wine, scraping up every browned scrap.
4. Whisk in the hot stock gradually, then the reserved juices.
5. Simmer 5 minutes, add the herbs, and season with salt and white pepper.
6. Strain if you like it smooth, and pour into a warmed jug.

The quick version¶

Serves 4 · 6 minutes

You need

• 25 g butter
• 25 g plain flour
• 500 ml hot chicken stock
• 1 tbsp double cream (optional)
• Squeeze of lemon

Method

1. Make a pale roux with the butter and flour — two minutes, no colour.
2. Whisk in the hot stock gradually and simmer for four minutes.
3. Off the heat, stir in the cream and a squeeze of lemon; season.

Vegetarian and vegan versions¶

Swap chicken stock for a good vegetable stock and add depth with white miso or a splash of dry cider rather than yeast extract, which is too dark and beefy here. A vegan version works beautifully with oat cream and tarragon; see vegan gravy.

Common mistakes¶

Leaving all the fat in — chicken fat is delicious but a greasy gravy is not. Skim, and keep the juices beneath.

Over-thickening — chicken gravy should pour, not sit. Aim for single-cream consistency.

Adding cream then boiling — it can split. Stir cream in off the heat.

Ignoring the resting juices — the plate the bird rests on collects concentrated, seasoned liquid. Tip it in.

See also¶

• turkey gravy
• white gravy
• chicken stock
• pan gravy
• best gravy for roast chicken