Moving back to New England with my southern boy in tow, he quickly became disappointed with the local options of biscuits and gravy. I remember him describing one such attempt at a diner as "raw pancake batter with cut up hotdogs in it". Poor man, he all but gave up trying to find a decent version in the nearby restaurants and just made it at home on a lazy Sunday morning. Our daughter has had the pleasure of his creamy homemade gravy with spicy chunks of locally made breakfast sausage over flaky buttermilk biscuits before we made a family diet change. This is not that recipe.
How do I make a vegan, gluten free version of this incredibly unhealthy breakfast favorite?
Start with the Vegan Sausage:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup chopped fennel bulb
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 large garlic clove
1 1/2 cups sunflower seeds1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
3 Tbsp olive oil, divided
4 tsp purple sage
2 tsp pink salt
2 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp marjoram
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1/4 tsp ground cloves
To prep the "sausage", you either need a food processor, or be ready to chop, chop, chop.
Finely chop or food process sunflower seeds (you can do this in small batched with a coffee grinder). Add 1 Tbsp olive oil, maple syrup, sage, salt, pepper, marjoram, red pepper flakes, and cloves.
Mix well.
Empty food processor into a 2 quart bowl and add finely chopped fennel bulb, onion, and garlic (I chopped this in the food processor as well). Stir until well incorporated with sunflower seeds mixture.
Cook until brown and crispy. Let the mix sit in the pan, don't over stir it or it can get mushy. You want this to really brown up and get crispy. You will be adding this to a liquid later to make the gravy, so go ahead and blacken parts of it. Use a metal spatula and scrape that dark stuff off the bottom of the pan. When this is all nice and crispy, empty it into that 2 quart bowl again so you can use the cast iron pan for the gravy base.
This is a good time to start your biscuits. You could use any of your favorite biscuit recipe for this and if you have an amazing, flaky one that doesn't use butter, vegan margarine, or coconut oil, pass it on to me! This is just my go to, run of the mill, olive oil, gluten free biscuit recipe...
Gluten Free Biscuits:
1 cup all purpose gluten free flour mix
(I used Bob's) or wheat flour, or blend.
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 pink salt
3 Tbsp olive oil
1/3 cup water (or nut milk)
Stir dry ingredients in a bowl, pour in oil, mix with fork until small clumps, add water and form into a disc. Do not overwork this dough, just pat flat, about 1 inch thick.
Cut and bake at 450* for 10-12 minutes.
This makes a small batch because they are best when fresh from the oven. While the biscuits bake, start on that gravy.
Breakfast Gravy:
Make a rue with 2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp (gluten free) flour
Mix together in the hot cast iron pan (with whatever bits of leftover crumbly remain) until a paste forms.
Add 4 cups almond milk (or any other vegan milk, but I've only ever used my homemade almond milk) and whisk.
Keep whisking until it thickens and slowly boils.
Add your Vegan Sausage.
Normally, I would say salt and pepper to taste, but I think you will find that the sausage is highly seasoned and there is no need to add anything. (Unless you are Ben, and add black pepper anyway.)
Stir until heated thoroughly. Let sit until biscuits are done.
Split open your fresh biscuit, dollop a large spoonful of gravy onto each half and dig in!
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