Publised on 29/09/2022. Last Updated on 06/12/2024 by Richard
Super easy vegan gravy - made from scratch and packed full of flavour. An ideal addition to any vegan thanksgiving dinner, vegan Christmas dinner or even a vegan Sunday lunch!
You're planning a vegan thanksgiving without homemade vegan gravy?! OK, go to jail immediately! There's no vegan thanksgiving dinner OR vegan Christmas dinner without deliciously smooth vegan gravy! And I'm sure that's a law somewhere! (Same goes for Vegan Dinner Rolls and Vegan Stuffing - sorry! I don't make the rules!)
Even if you're just making a Sunday roast, were you REALLY gonna make my Vegan Yorkshire Puddings without this gravy?? And just in case you were thinking about talking your way out of jail time, this vegan gravy is SUPER EASY so there's really zero excuse! So it's time to get making! Oh and if you're looking for more thanksgiving recipes, check this out!
This vegan gravy is the MAGIC that holds together a full roast dinner, vegan Christmas dinner or vegan thanksgiving. This means it simply must be paired with my vegan chicken , vegan turkey or vegan beef roasts! That sweet, salty, umami flavour really binds together the entire meal - but I mean you already knew that.
And if you're reading this outside of holiday season, why not grab some delicious store bought bangers, whip up some vegan mashed potatoes and cover them both in this delicious vegan gravy! Heck, you could even use my vegan mozzarella to make some mean poutine!
How do I make vegan gravy?
FULL RECIPE lives right down at the bottom of the page so if you're in a rush to get started on your vegan thanksgiving dinner, scroll on down there. Alternatively, here's a step by step breakdown!
Gravy usually contains a bunch of meat juices and butter, so is basically a vegan's worst nightmare. UNTIL NOW! Here's how to get a gorgeous VEGAN gravy without any weird or specialist ingredients.
1. Fry your onions
Step one in making vegan gravy is all about onions! These are going to be providing the bulk of your flavour in your gravy, so we need to cook them properly. And by properly, I mean in vegan butter AND for a while! We want some nice colour on these onions before we add our stock, which will help to make our gravy a lovely colour AND flavour.
I also like to fry bay leaves and garlic at this stage if possible as it infuses the vegan butter with a ton of flavour from square one.
2. Add flour
Now we need to essentially make a roux! This is where we mix flour with the fats in the pan and cook for a short period of time. The flour roux will eventually help to thicken the gravy, but to ensure we don't have a dry mouthfeel in our gravy, we need to cook off the flour first.
This stage also helps to add colour to our vegan gravy, so cook the roux until it picks up a light caramel brown colour.
3. Add veggie stock
Little by little, you now need to add some hot veggie stock or broth. Use a nice bold flavoured stock if you can - I like to go for mushroom stock usually when making vegan gravy, as it also helps with colour.
It's important to add a little at a time and to whisk constantly. This stops the gravy from becoming lumpy, which would be a disaster.
4. Add dark soy sauce
At this stage our vegan gravy is pale in colour, almost like a chicken stock gravy. To get a nice brown gravy colour, we're going to add a tablespoon of dark soy sauce. Dark soy has a great colour and just a tablespoon will make the sauce glossy and rich!
If you'd prefer your gravy much lighter in colour, you can season at this stage with salt instead of soy sauce.
5. Whisk vegan gravy until thickened
Everybody likes their vegan gravy a different thickness. As a northerner, I like it THICCQUE! So here you have the option to cook your gravy to your desired thickness.
Just one thing - don't stop whisking! If you do, the flour will catch on the bottom of the pan and burn or become lumpy.
6. Strain the vegan gravy and serve!
The vegan gravy is all but finished! you just need to make it smooth now! Easily done. Just pass the gravy through a sieve and catch all the bits of onion, garlic and bay leaves. It's a good idea to use a spatula to squeeze as much flavour out of the residual veggies as possible.
Keep your vegan gravy warm over a very low heat until you're ready to serve - and presto! You're a gravy genius!
Now you just have to think about what you're gonna serve it with! Gravy has so many uses, it's sort of bonkers. I'd wash my hair with it if my husband would let me. I know, I know, everyone uses vegan gravy differently, but I like to serve mine with:
It helps me MASSIVELY if you can rate and review this recipe below. This blog is here because people like you actually use it and cook these recipes!
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Vegan Gravy
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoon vegan butter
- 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
- 1 onion peeled and chopped roughly
- 2 cloves of garlic peeled and crushed roughly
- 2 bay leaves
- 4 tablespoon plain white flour
- 700 ml mushroom stock or vegetable stock
- 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
- Sea salt and black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Place a large saucepan over medium heat and add the vegan butter and vegetable oil. Once the vegan butter is melted, add the onion. Fry for around 10 minutes, stirring often until the onion is beginning to brown.2 tablespoon vegan butter, 1 teaspoon vegetable oil, 1 onion
- Add the garlic and bay leaves and fry for a further 2 minutes, stirring often.2 cloves of garlic, 2 bay leaves
- Add the plain white flour and stir to make sure all the pieces of onion are coated. Add around 100ml of the stock and stir well until a thick paste forms. Keep adding the stock little by little, stirring constantly.4 tablespoon plain white flour, 700 ml mushroom stock
- Once all the stock is added, reduce the heat to low and cook the gravy for a further 5 minutes, stirring constantly, or until the gravy has thickened to the desired consistency. Add the soy sauce then season to taste with salt and black pepper.1 tablespoon dark soy sauce, Sea salt and black pepper to taste
- Remove from the heat, pass the gravy through a sieve and serve or keep over a very low heat, stirring occasionally to keep warm.
Joan
BTW, It was SO very helpful to have the quantity and ingredients listed again in the instructions so we don't have to scroll back up to the list of ingredients. SO clever and extremely helpful!
Joan
Delicious, easy! Uses basic pantry ingredients. Lovely onion/garlicky flavor. I am not going to shampoo with it but I did make 6 batches of your gravy. I hope it freezes well. Thanks for sharing a wonderful recipe. It will really help make for a lovely Christmas dinner.
Liene
New favorite. A real lovely straightforward golden gravy for our first Thanksgiving abroad. The onions were JUST starting to brown, and brown deliciousness was already starting to stick to the bottom of the pan (eek), so the flour didn't get near as much time to cook as I'd usually give a roux, but DANG the broth/stock deglazed it beautifully — we actually had a fairly golden gravy before the soy sauce. Popped the bay leaves out at the end, and used an immersion blender on the rest to avoid discarding all those lovely onions. It sat on the lowest heat, with no babysitting needed, until we ate. Poured it on everything, and our non-vegan friends loved it, too.
Nicki
I picked this gravy recipe for Thanksgiving because it looked easy and tasty and I was short on time, and the reviews were so strong. It’s a decent recipe, but it needs some tweaking.
The first issue I ran into was at the onions took 15 minutes to turn golden brown, not 10 minutes. Maybe they’d take 10 minutes in a wide sauté pan, but not in a saucepan, certainly not when they are just roughly chopped. No big deal, but that set me back on my timeline.
The bigger issue is that there is too much broth for the amount of flour. I measured 700 ML broth exactly on my scale, and by the time I was halfway through pouring in the broth gradually, I could tell that it was too much liquid. I probably only used 550 to 600 ML of broth and the gravy was still way too thin.
So I simmered the gravy for much longer than the five minutes stated, but it still did not thicken enough. I ended up adding some nutritional yeast to help thicken (and it added a nice flavor).
Then I added the gravy to my blender thinking that blending it up would make the gravy thicker, but it helped just a little.
So then I returned the gravy to the saucepan for several more minutes until it was finally an acceptably thick consistency.
The end result was nice but not amazing enough to justify the extra time and effort (took about 45 minutes with all the additions).
Katie
Love this gravy! So easy and tasty ♥️
Susan
I served this on thanksgiving to both vegans and non-vegans and it was a huge hit. Lots of flavor, great texture and best of all, I made it ahead so it was super easy.
Emma
Blimey this gravy is soooo good. Plates are of no use to me now, I'm gonna need all Sunday roasts, bangers and mash etc. etc. to be served in a bowl from now on 'cos I want all the gravy! Thank you Mr School Night Vegan for this gift.
Svenja
*****
Sharon Bhogal
Now a staple in my home
Amy
This looks so easy 😍 can’t wait to whip it up!
Lee Tidball
This gravy recipe is the best I’ve ever made. For classic American Thanksgiving, I added some fresh finely chopped sage with the onions and some fresh thyme with the garlic and bay leaves, just to enhance those holiday flavors. I removed the bay leaves and blended it all before it completely thickened, just so it would be smooth. Absolutely aces. Thank you for your exceptional recipes. You’ve never failed me. ❤️
Jordan Elliott
This is the best vegan gravy recipe I have made. WOW! I used 2/3 veggie/umami mushroom stock and 1/3 vegan beef stock and also added 1 tsp of marmite instead of the soy sauce.
This is so incredible and I can’t wait to impress my non-vegan family at Christmas tomorrow. Thank you, Richard!