I know a lot of restaurants serve it that way, and so that’s what folks have come to expect. Real milk-based gravies should not be pasty. If you have a hard time finding glucomannan powder in your local supplement store, it’s available for a very reasonable price on Amazon, and it will last a very long time. Trust me, xanthan gum is the mortal enemy of gravy. It is incredibly easy to overdo, and tends to make hot liquids slimy and/or gummy. Notes: Before you ask, please, for the love of all that is keto and wonderful, do not try to use xanthan gum as the thickener. Serve it up over eggs, or with your favorite low carb biscuits (like my buttermilk-style ones).
It’s just pure southern, sausage-and-bacon-and-peppery deliciousness. I have to tell you, while I realize that folks do the best they can to simulate old favorites, I’ve never in my life seen a “real” southern gravy that had cream cheese in it, and there won’t be cream cheese in this one, either. Roux is not exactly keto-friendly, but making an authentic southern milk gravy, with or without sausage, is as easy as swapping in heavy cream for milk and adding a little glucomannan powder at the right time. This recipe is almost identical to my non-keto sausage/milk gravy with some lifestyle-appropriate changes. You start with a roux of flour and animal fat (usually bacon drippings but sausage drippings work, too), and then you add milk (or cream), salt, and a whole lot of pepper, then cook it down to the thickness you prefer. Milk-based gravies are pretty simple fare. The recipe he used was handed down to him from his grandma (my Pepa’s mama), and while eating french toast and gravy may sound odd to some, it was a childhood delicacy! Although my dad passed when I was pretty young, one of my more vivid memories of him was of making french toast (unsweetened) and smothering it with home made, peppery milk gravy. In my very southern family, however, we served it sans sausage and called it milk gravy.
It gets the sawmill moniker because it’s something they used to serve at chow time in the old Civil War era sawmills and logging camps. Sawmill gravy, also known as sausage gravy, is a southern staple.