The encyclopaedia of gravy
How to turn stock — homemade, fresh from a tub, or from a cube — into gravy worth pouring, with the tricks that make cube gravy taste homemade.
Stock is the backbone of gravy, and the quality of the stock sets the ceiling on the quality of the gravy. This page covers what to do with each kind.
Choosing your stock¶
| Stock | Body | Flavour | What it needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homemade from bones | Excellent — gelatin gives real texture | Deep, clean | Almost nothing |
| Fresh chilled tubs | Good | Good, sometimes sweet | A little acidity |
| Stock pots / concentrates | None | Strong, salty | Dilution, browning, fat |
| Cubes | None | Salty, one-note | Everything below |
| Vegetable cooking water | Slight, from starch | Mild | Combining with one of the above |
The base method¶
- Make a roux: 30 g fat and 30 g flour, cooked for 2–4 minutes. Cook it longer and darker for beef gravy, shorter and paler for chicken.
- Whisk in 500 ml hot stock gradually.
- Simmer 8–10 minutes — longer than you would with pan juices, because reduction is doing the work that a roasting tin usually does.
- Season last.
Making cube gravy taste like it came from a roast¶
A stock cube gives salt and a generic savoury note. A roast gives browning, fat, gelatin and acidity. Add those back deliberately:
- Browning. Fry a sliced onion, or a tablespoon of finely chopped carrot and celery, until genuinely dark before the flour goes in. Fifteen minutes of this is the single biggest improvement you can make.
- Fat. Use butter or dripping rather than oil, and finish with a small knob of cold butter off the heat for gloss.
- Body. Use slightly less water than the cube instructs and simmer longer. If you have any, a spoonful of jellied stock or leftover gravy transforms it.
- Umami. ½ tsp yeast extract, 1 tsp soy sauce, or a few rehydrated dried mushrooms.
- Acidity. A teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, balsamic, or a splash of wine reduced down.
- Colour. A few drops of gravy browning if it still looks pale.
🔬 The science
Stock cubes are salt, flavourings and dried savoury compounds. What they cannot supply is gelatin — the dissolved collagen that gives homemade stock its lip-sticking body. That is why cube gravy needs more flour to feel substantial, and why it never quite has the same texture. See gelatin from bones.
A good beef gravy from a cube¶
Serves 4 · 20 minutes
- 1 onion, thinly sliced · 30 g butter · 1 tbsp plain flour
- 500 ml beef stock (from 1 cube, made slightly strong)
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce · ½ tsp yeast extract · black pepper
- Cook the onion in the butter over medium heat for 15 minutes until properly browned.
- Stir in the flour, cook 2 minutes.
- Add the stock gradually, whisking.
- Simmer 8 minutes, then add the Worcestershire sauce and yeast extract.
- Strain if you want it smooth. Season with pepper; it probably needs no salt.