Sunday Gravy Made Saturday Night
The whole gravy made the night before while you have time, so on Sunday all you do is stir in the roasting tin juices and heat it through.
- Contains meat
- make ahead
- sunday roast
- batch
- stress free
- Prep
- 10 min
- Cook
- 25 min
- Total
- 35 min
- Serves
- 6
- Difficulty
- Easy
The reason Sunday gravy is stressful is that it gets made in the ten minutes when the meat is resting, the potatoes need turning and everyone is asking when it will be ready. Move it to Saturday night and that problem disappears. You make a proper base with time to spare, then on the day it takes four minutes and it is better than the panicked version ever was.
Ingredients
Makes about 700ml once the tin juices go in, enough for six plates
Scaled amounts are rounded to something you can actually measure. Season at the end and trust your mouth over the maths.
Kit
- Saucepan
- Whisk
- Sieve
- Tub or jug with a lid
Method
On the Saturday, melt the butter or dripping in a saucepan over a medium heat and add the onions and carrot with a pinch of salt. Cook for twelve to fifteen minutes, stirring regularly, until everything is soft and there is proper brown colour on the onions and stuck to the pan. This is the step you never have time for on a Sunday, which is exactly why it is worth moving.
Stir in the tomato puree and cook it for a minute until it darkens, then add the flour and cook the whole lot for two minutes, scraping the base.
Add the hot stock a third at a time, whisking each addition smooth and scraping up everything from the bottom of the pan. Drop in the thyme and bay.
Simmer gently for ten minutes, then take out the herbs and push the whole thing through a sieve into a jug, pressing the vegetables hard with the back of a ladle. You will get a good tablespoon or two of extra liquid out of them, and that liquid is the best bit.
Stir in the Worcestershire sauce, then cool it as fast as you can. Stand the jug in a sink of cold water and stir it now and then. Do not put a warm jug of gravy straight into the fridge, it warms everything else in there and takes hours to cool through.
Once cold, cover it and refrigerate overnight. Deliberately leave it slightly under seasoned, because the roasting tin juices coming tomorrow will bring salt of their own.
On the Sunday, when the joint comes out to rest, pour off the fat from the roasting tin and put the tin over a hob ring. Tip in a ladleful of the cold gravy and scrape the base hard to lift all the browned residue.
Scrape all of that back into the pan with the rest of the gravy, add any juices from under the resting meat, and bring it to a simmer for three or four minutes. Taste it now and season properly. Total time on the day, about four minutes.
Tips worth knowing
- Under season it on Saturday. Roasting tin juices are salty and you cannot take salt back out on Sunday afternoon with everyone waiting.
- Cool it quickly in a sink of cold water rather than leaving it on the side. Gravy sitting at room temperature for hours is a genuine food safety problem, not a fussy one.
- It will set to a soft jelly overnight if your stock was any good. That is a sign you did it right, not that something has gone wrong.
- Make it two days ahead if that suits you better, or freeze it up to a month ahead and move it to the fridge on Saturday morning.
Change it up
- Add a glass of red wine after the tomato puree and reduce it by half before the stock goes in, which is easy on a Saturday and impossible on a Sunday. Use dark grape juice with a teaspoon of balsamic to keep it alcohol free.
- Roast a handful of chicken wings or a beef bone alongside the vegetables at the start for a base with much more depth, adding about forty minutes to the Saturday.
- For a vegetarian Sunday, use vegetable stock, oil instead of dripping, and a teaspoon of yeast extract, then deglaze the roasting tin from a tray of roast vegetables instead of meat.
Keeping and reheating
Three days in the fridge before the tin juices go in, or three months in the freezer. Once you have added the roasting juices, treat it as a fresh gravy and use it within three days. Do not freeze it a second time after that.
Questions people ask
Can you make gravy the day before?
Yes, and it is the single best thing you can do to make a roast dinner less stressful. Make the base with stock and vegetables the day before, keep it in the fridge, then on the day deglaze the roasting tin with some of it and stir the lot together. Four minutes on the day instead of fifteen.
Does gravy taste better the next day?
The base does, yes. The flavours settle and the onion sweetness spreads through it. What it lacks until the day is the roasting tin juices, which is why this method keeps those for the last minute rather than trying to do everything in advance.
How do you keep gravy warm while the roast rests?
In a saucepan over the lowest possible heat with a lid on, stirring every few minutes, or in a warmed vacuum flask which will hold it hot for an hour and frees up a hob ring. Whisk it before serving either way, since a skin will form on the surface.