This healthy sausage gravy draws inspiration from southern-style country pepper gravy and turns boring ground chicken into a flavorful base for thick and creamy biscuit dressing. Unlike traditional sausage gravy, this healthy sausage gravy has nearly 5x more protein than fat! And if you pair it with my Greek yogurt biscuits, there’s no doubt you’ll be shredded by lunchtime.
How to Make the Sausage Gravy
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? My recent recipe for homemade chicken breakfast sausage has been a hit. So instead of making patties, this sausage gravy calls for the same sausage recipe crumbled.
Can I get a yay for zero handling or making patties?
Sausage note: If you don’t want to mix the spices for your own breakfast sausage, you could use reduced fat pork sausage like in my egg and chorizo breakfast casserole or maybe even pre-cooked turkey sausage crumbles like in my breakfast chili.
Aside from the chicken sausage, you’ll only need 4 additional ingredients—light butter, flour, white or black pepper, and skim milk (or any milk).
And that’s it. Cook the sausage, stir in the flour and pepper, then add milk and cook until you have thick, super savory healthy sausage gravy!
Making Healthy Biscuits and Gravy
Like I mentioned in the intro, I used my Greek yogurt biscuits recipe to make gravy pillows. They are easy to make, buttery and fluffy, and have just 3 grams of fat each.
If you go the Greek yogurt biscuits route, you may want to double the biscuit recipe to match the amount of gravy this recipe makes. And if you’d rather spend your saved calories on real-deal biscuits, I won’t judge you for it.
And there are always options like the Carbquick biscuits I used in my hot honey oven baked chicken biscuits recipe.
Final Recipe Notes
Don’t sweat perfection in this recipe. It’s difficult to mess up.
If your healthy sausage gravy is too thin, keep cooking over a low heat (or add a bit more flour). Or if it’s too thick, add a bit more milk. The gravy will continue to thicken as it cools so keep that in mind when serving.
You can always season later. If you’re sensitive to spice, start with half the amount of pepper and add as needed when the gravy is ready. There’s even some wiggle room with the spices in the breakfast sausage recipe that I covered in the original sausage recipe.
And finally, the 3 primary healthy sausage gravy ingredients have all kinds of wiggle room. Something like whole milk or adding a bit of butter will make the gravy even creamier. On the other hand, something like almond milk will reduce the calories even further but you may not need as much.
The flour acts as a thickener and absorbs any remaining oil and fat in the pan before adding the milk. I haven’t tested any other flours, but my guess is they’d work just fine, too.
What I’m trying to say is, it’s all gravy, baby. Have fun!
Healthy Sausage Gravy
Ingredients
For the Breakfast Sausage
- 1 lb Ground Chicken, 97/3
- 2 tsp Black Pepper
- 1 tsp Smoked Paprika
- 1/2-1 tsp Crushed Red Pepper
- 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt, or 1/4 tsp table salt
- 1/2 tsp Rubbed Sage
- 1/4 tsp Allspice
- 2 Tbsp 24g Swerve Brown, or a brown sugar substitute
For the Gravy
- 2 Tbsp 28g Light Butter
- 1/4 C 30g All Purpose Flour
- 1-2 tsp Ground White Pepper*
- 3 C 720mL Skim Milk, or your choice of milk
Instructions
- Mix the spices for the breakfast sausage together in a small bowl while you heat a large skillet over medium-high heat.
- Add the ground chicken to the skillet, using a spatula to finely crumble. Add the spices about halfway through cooking, stirring until the chicken is evenly coated. Continue cooking until the chicken is fully cooked and crumbled.
- Reduce the heat to medium-low. Add the butter, flour, and white pepper to the chicken, stirring until no longer visible.
- Gradually add the milk and continue cooking for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the gravy thickens. Once the gravy is as thick as you'd like, reduce the heat to its lowest setting to keep warm. (If the gravy thickens too much as it cools, you can add a bit more milk.)
The recipe was very good! A little too spicy for my taste. I tried to only put a little bit of red pepper flakes in but it was still too spicy for me. Next time I plan to leave them out all together.
I used Isernios brand extra lean chicken sausage (because lazy) and it was the simplest thing to make ever. I added a bit of finely diced mushrooms as well! I ended up putting it over a potato/veggie hash because I love volume eating, and it turned out great!
So glad to find a recipe for my gravy loving husband that won’t derail my eating for the day. Using almond milk, alway go slow as often half the amount (at most) works vs regular milk.
This recipe is a constant in our house. I love having a healthier option when I’m craving breakfast for dinner.
I hadn’t eaten biscuits and gravy in a long time because the nutrition/macros and just the general not great feeling it gives me after eating. Decided to try this recipe after it was shared by my partner. This might been controversial to some, but I absolutely think this is better than traditional recipes. It did not have that normal stick to your ribs feeling (a good thing imo), and the seasoning was spot on. I didn’t have allspice, and I used 8 grams of dark brown sugar instead of the swerve. I paired it with the Greek yogurt biscuits though I’ll admit that I could probably just eat it with a spoon. Thanks for such an awesome recipe!
My husband still has no idea that I made B’s and G’s sorta healthy, and I make this weekly (breakfast for dinner, always)! One of our FAVES.
Definitely one of my favorite Mason recipes! The spice combination for the chicken sausage is insane, I make a big batch of it to keep in my pantry!
One of my favorite Mason recipes! The spice combo in the chicken sausage is insane. I make a big batch to keep in my pantry.
Fantastic. No more bland turkey sausage For me!
The sausage and gravy combo was excellent. So happy I gave this a try. I’d easily have paid $15 for this at a restaurant.
Ok I just left a review for the homemade Greek yogurt biscuits (def recommend making those with this) but had to come here to leave another review. I’ve never made gravy before. Heck I’m new to the whole liking gravy thing (just tried it last year..:. I know). I was blown away by how delicious this is!!!! Definitely going to make it a bit. I substituted the black pepper with Cajun because I like spicy and I think that made it a little toooo spicy in my opinion so I’ll probably turn the heat down a bit next time.