For The Best Gravy Of Your Life, Add A Splash Of This Condiment
A good gravy is one of the most useful condiments out there. It can elevate the most rock-like of buttermilk biscuits, the driest of turkeys, and butter-less mashed potatoes. But since it does a lot of work helping others, your favorite gravy recipe is probably just about due for an upgrade of its own.
The next time your gravy is looking especially bland or pallid, give it a boost of flavor with an unexpected ingredient: soy sauce. The condiment's salty and umami undercurrents will take your gravy from basic to brilliant – and you don't need even need that much of it for it to make a difference.
This addition can be used in many different gravy recipes, including beef or turkey renditions, but it especially shines in a vegetarian or mushroom gravy. The latter tends to skimp on the salty and bold flavors, meaning that adding just a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce can really add depth.
Soy sauce is the upgrade that your homemade gravy needs
Making a great homemade brown gravy is more difficult than it looks, mainly because it's notoriously finicky. Gravy is always either too thick, too wet, too overcooked, too undercooked, or some combination of it all. Therefore, you need to be mindful about how much soy sauce you add to your recipe, as well as how that extra moisture and salt can affect its overall flavor.
For instance, if you're fixing over-thickened gravy that you've added soy sauce to, the saltiness will be super concentrated and potentially overwhelming. To avoid making the gravy too watered down, try adding a pat of butter instead. The fat will both hide the salt and add richness. You can also circumvent this issue entirely by using a low-sodium soy sauce.
If you're working with a recipe that doesn't explicitly call for soy sauce, you may want to also reduce some of other liquid ingredients to avoid making the gravy mixture too wet when you cook it. Regardless, we recommend tasting the mixture often, and adding soy sauce toward the end of the cooking process, so that you can tailor the recipe based on your taste.