Meatless Monday: Best Gravy You'll Ever Taste

Thanksgiving is almost here!  Wow, this year has flown by. While I hate that Thanksgiving means the slaughtering of millions of turkeys for commercial consumption, I do love that it is a time that brings friends and family together.  With all those friends and families together, it means food! 

As we all know, I love food; and we may even know that mashed potatoes are one of my favorite foods.  Fun fact about me, while I have always loved mashed potatoes, I never, ever ate them with gravy until recently. I just didn't like gravy. Starting from when I was a kid, in place of gravy, I would use soy sauce to season my mashed potatoes. 

Then one day, while playing with a few of my favorite cheese sauce ingredients, and adding a little tamari (aka soy sauce), I came up with this gravy recipe and I've been obsessed ever since. I thought it was just me that found this gravy so ridiculously good, but after teaching my demo on Saturday, half of the attendees immediately hit the Whole Foods aisles to gather all of the ingredients that go into the gravy. I'm so happy to have inspired people to ditch the giblet gravy this year! Now if only we could get everyone to switch to tofurkey or seitan to save a few of our gobbling friends this holiday. Maybe next year.

No photo for this one since gravy is brown and does not make for pretty photos, but here's the recipe.

Herb Gravy

Ingredients

2 -3 T chickpea flour

1 T olive oil

2 C vegetable broth or water

2 T tamari soy sauce

1/4- 1/2 C nutritional yeast

1 tsp dried thyme (or 2 tsp fresh)

1/4 tsp dried rosemary

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1⁄4 cup soy or almond milk, optional

Directions

1. In a small saucepan, heat oil over medium heat and add chickpea flour, stirring until well combined to make a roux.

2. Whisk in the broth, tamari, thyme, and rosemary and increase to high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, whisk in the nutritional yeast and simmer, stirring frequently, until the sauce thickens, about 2 to 5 minutes. Use more flour, dissolved in a separate bowl with some of the gravy, if needed to thicken further.

3. Slowly whisk in the milk, if using. Do not boil. Season with salt and pepper and taste to adjust the seasonings before serving.

*Note: I like to add sauteed mushrooms to this sometimes for a little texture and added flavor.