white gravy
Milk gravy from drippings, flour, and black pepper.
Also called sawmill gravy, country gravy, cream gravy.
Updated September 24, 2026
white gravy pronunciation
/WITE GRAY-vee/
Meaning
The pale, peppery gravy poured over biscuits, fried chicken, and country-fried steak. You cook flour in bacon or sausage fat (or butter), whisk in milk, and hit it hard with black pepper. Also called country gravy or sawmill gravy, from logging-camp breakfasts that ran on coffee, biscuits, and cream gravy. Sausage gravy is the same idea with crumbled sausage stirred back in.
How folks use it
- “Split them biscuits and drown 'em in white gravy.”
- “Mama's white gravy needs more pepper before it's right.”
Origin and etymology
Southern and Appalachian cream gravy built like a simple roux: fat, flour, milk. Logging camps supposedly lived on biscuits and this gravy, which stuck the name sawmill gravy. After hard times and postwar breakfast tables, white gravy became everyday country cooking, distinct from brown gravy or coffee-based red-eye.
Frequently asked questions
Is white gravy the same as sausage gravy?
Close. White gravy is the milk base. Sausage gravy is white gravy with sausage cooked in it.