Gravy from a jar exists because people think the real thing is difficult. It is butter, flour, and the brown stuff stuck to the bottom of your roasting pan. Twenty minutes, start to finish, and most of that is waiting for a roux to change color.
The flavor is already made for you. A turkey sitting on a rack for three hours drips fat and juice onto the tray below, and those browned bits are concentrated roast turkey. All you are doing is lifting them off the pan and thickening them.
Johnny Mack from The Sauce and Gravy Channel walks through it here with a plain seasoned bird, nothing fancy, which is the point: you do not need special ingredients to get good gravy.
What if you have no drippings?
Use stock. The roux and the method stay identical, and you swap two cups of turkey or chicken stock in where the drippings would have gone.
It will not taste the same, because nothing replicates roasted turkey fond. It will still be a long way ahead of the jar. If you want to close some of the gap, brown a little butter in the saucepan before you add the flour.
Thicker or thinner
The ratio decides it. Three tablespoons of butter and three tablespoons of flour to two cups of liquid gives you a medium gravy that coats a spoon and slides off.
Want it thicker? Go up to four of each. Thinner, drop to two. Adjust the roux rather than the liquid, because adding more stock at the end dilutes the flavor you just spent an hour building.
If it comes out too thick anyway, whisk in warm stock a splash at a time. Too thin, let it simmer longer and it will reduce.
How to avoid lumps
Lumps come from flour hitting hot liquid before it is coated in fat. Cook the roux properly, then add the liquid gradually with the whisk already moving.
If you get lumps anyway, pour the whole thing through a fine sieve. Nobody at the table will know.
Is a fat separator worth it?
For one dinner a year, it is a fair question. The answer is yes, and it is the one piece of kit in this recipe worth buying.
Pan drippings are maybe a third fat by volume. Skimming it off with a spoon is slow and you never get it all. A separator pours the liquid out from underneath and leaves the fat sitting on top, which means your gravy tastes of turkey rather than grease.
No separator? Let the drippings settle in a jug for ten minutes and ladle the fat off the top.
Making it ahead
Gravy reheats well, so you can build it in the morning and warm it through while the turkey rests. It thickens as it cools. Whisk in a splash of stock as it comes back up to temperature and it loosens straight back out.
Save the drippings whether or not you make it right away. Once that roasting pan goes in the sink the gravy is gone.
The rest of the Thanksgiving table
Gravy needs somewhere to go. The rest of the Thanksgiving plate:
