Speckled Roaster Turkey Gravy

A Make Ahead Lifesaver For Thanksgiving

Speckled Roaster Turkey Gravy, a rich, old school gravy made low and slow in the black speckled roasting pan. Simple ingredients like turkey legs, broth, onions and a few simple spices and herbs that take the flavor over the top.

I have been making a make ahead turkey gravy for a few years now. That recipe calls for turkey wings and yields a gravy that has little bits of turkey and veggie throughout. I decided to try making a gravy in my black speckled roaster to see if the flavor profile were any different from the original make ahead gravy. They surprisingly were. One is not better than the other, they are just slightly different, in all the best ways.

Legs Versus Wings

The wings make a great gravy but the legs add a more depth of flavor since it is the dark meat. I will say that they legs give more of a flavor that the gravy has been make from an actual whole roasting bird. You also get a lot more juices out of the legs than I do the wings. Both gravies are delicious. I think you should make both and have a taste test at your holiday dinner.

The Famous Speckled Roaster

I use my speckled roaster for LOTS of recipes. I think I have almost a whole section of Speckled Roaster Recipes on this site. You can scroll through and peruse them. Perhaps you have already made many of them? This will be yet another recipe that you will love using this roaster for. Some of my speckled roasters are actually blue. I need to stop calling it the BLACK speckled roaster.

If you are wondering where to get a speckled roaster you have three options. You can inherit one. I inherited most of mine from my Grandma. You can get one at a thrift store or hardware store. Or you can get one on Amazon. The one I am using for this recipe is the 18 inch roaster. You can use a smaller or larger one. Whatever you have can accommodate this recipe.

Season With Love

Although I give measurements for this recipe, and all my recipes. You should season with your heart. I give you a good jumping off point. Try to start tasting your food and seeing what spices and herbs you like to use a lot of and the ones you use sparingly. In this case, turkey needs to be seasoned a lot to add flavor. Do not be afraid to be a little heavy handed in this recipe since you are adding a lot of liquid.

If You Only Like Your Recipe Blogger Chunky….

In the make ahead turkey gravy that I have had on my site, you add the bits of turkey back to the gravy. Some people on Facebook lost their minds over this. This recipe can be SMOOTH if that is what you prefer. You CAN also add the turkey and onion bits back to this. You do you.

Fat Or Not

Using the turkey legs, you will have more fat in the gravy. I like to leave it as I follow the rule that fat is flavor. If this is going to bother you, you can chill the broth after you strain it, refrigerate it overnight and skim the fat off the top before completing the steps to thicken this gravy.

Wondering About Wondra

Wondra is a flour my Mom and my Grandma have used my whole life to thicken gravy. I believe it is literally made for gravy. It comes in a small blue shaker type bottle as pictured above. People also lost their minds on the OTHER turkey gravy recipe because I used packets of turkey gravy mx. This recipe has you making an old school slurry. Relax, everything will be ok!

Freeze If You Please

If you would like to make this a week or more in advance, you can! I would make the whole recipe except for the thickening part, and freeze the broth. A day or two before the day you want to serve, I would thaw and follow the thickening parts.

If you make this a few days before the day you serve it, it will be just fine in the fridge. This may be gross, but I like to make this gravy ahead of time. Keep it in the fridge and then use the cold version as a sandwich spread on my leftover turkey sandwiches. Fat A$$ery at its finest!

I Found Two Amazing Gravy Boats

So the gravy boats that come with the china sets are just not going to cut it with the amazing amounts of gravy you are going to have. I tested out a few gravy boats that I found on amazon to better our gravy serving possibilities. You can find them in The Tipsy Housewife Amazon Shop. *this is an affiliate link, which means amazon pays me a small commission if you use the link. this costs you no extra.

What I like about the two boats is that the one is very pretty white, but more importantly LARGE. It will hold the plethora of gravy. The other one is also LARGE but it keeps the gravy HOT. To me it doesn’t look as pretty but it functions perfectly. It is like a coffee carafe of gravy. Yes please! One is like a Porsche and one is like a Lincoln Continental.