You may have thought you knew Southern food, but unless you’ve had chocolate gravy, you really are just a dilletante — which is what I was until I lost my chocolate gravy virginity this morning. For some reason, the gospel of the almight chocolate sauce has not been preached from the Appalachian mountaintops. I’m fairly well-read on Southern food, but until earlier this week, when I was reading the New Encylcopedia of Southern Culture’s volume on Foodways, I read a description of a type of “gravy” common in the Appalachian regions of the South. This flour-thickened sauce is typically served with biscuits for breakfast. According to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, there are several legends regarding the origin chocolate gravy:”Spanish Louisiana had a trading network in to the Tennessee valley. This trade may have introduced Mexican-style breakfast chocolate to the Appalachians, where it is called ‘chocolate gravy.’ (Another possibility is that the very old population of mixed-race Appalachian Melungeons has preserved the dish from the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish colonies on the East Coast.)”
Of course, I had to thoroughly research this sauce. Is it a mole? Is it sweet or savory? Is it just for breakfast? I had lots of questions, and fortunately, chocolate gravy isn’t as uncommon as I would have thought. Search the internet, and you’ll finds hundreds, or even thousands of entries on chocolate gravy. I was getting depressed, as I really didn’t know how I could manage to live 44 years without ever having tried this Southern specialty.
After looking at a bunch of recipes, I decided I needed to choose one that looked right to me. And then I realized, this is just a bechamel with cocoa powder and sugar added. Once I realized that, it was a piece of cake to make the stuff. Melt some butter, add flour, cocoa powder and sugar. Slowly add some milk — just like you might make a meat-based gravy. Finish with vanilla. Wow, it was good and will be a staple at our breakfast table for years to come.
Recipe after the break.
Chocolate Gravy
5 Tbsp unsalted butter
3 Tbsp flour
3 Tbsp cocoa powder
4 Tbsp sugar
1 cup milk
1-1/2 tsp vanilla
Melt butter in skillet. Stir in flour, cocoa powder and sugar and continue to cook over low heat for 2-3 minutes. Slowly add the milk a bit at a time, making sure to incorporate it fully. Once all the milk has been added, cook for another 2 minutes, until thick. Add vanilla off heat. Serve over biscuits, toast or if you really want to be decadent, toasted pound cake. Some people even serve it over eggs, but I’m not quite ready for that yet.
Chocolate — it’s not just for breakfast anymore, And for god’s sake, crumble up some bacon or something and put in there, ok? That’s after you substitute in bacon fat for the butter.
Hope that helps.
Being a chocolate gravy neophyte, I wanted to start gently. Bacon fat next go around, perhaps!
Bacon sweets 4eva!
Or heck, use some pecans. I guess after a while one might as well just make a cake though.
i loooooove chocolate gravy!!!!! my friend’s aunt always made it when we went to the lake when we were in high school! it was the PERFECT way to start off any morning!!!
That might be to much Choc. for me
OMG. I love all things choc!
The exact stuff that my Dad used to make after Sunday dinner. I never thought of this as a breakfast food, but as a way to use the biscuits for dessert – very much the same way we’d use Karo Syrup and butter. Of course, the chocolate gravy was better.
I am a southern girl and I love chocolate gravy it is the best stuff ever. I always tell my friends about it and they look at me like I’m crazy but once they try it they love it.
[...] Chocolate Gravy — Yes, Chocolate Gravy! [...]
YUMMI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I grew up in the mountains of NC and ate chocolate gravy when I went to my granny’s houses — they always tore the biscuits up into pieces before putting the gravy on top, it was easier for us kids to eat — maybe it made less mess for them? Anyway, it’s a fond memory, along with fried apple pies.
Haha, My mom bakes chocolate gravy every saturday. It is the best out there, most people think ‘chocolate gravy?? ew!’ but you don’t live until you try chocolate gravy.
I’ve been living in the backwoods of Southwest Virginia ever since I was three years old, and my grandmother would make chocolate gravy for the grand kids every time we came to visit. We didn’t put it on biscuits, but on the white flower pan bread that she would bake. It was great stuff.
I mention Chocolate gravy to others in the outlying areas of Southwest Virginia, say in Abingdon or Bristol, VA, and I keep getting the strangest looks. You’d think that they would know about it as well being that they aren’t that far away from the backwoods, but they don’t. Of course most of the people I have asked were at least five years younger than myself, so maybe their grandmothers just never made it.
The looks you get you’d think I suggested eating possum. LOL!
Yes in high school me and my buddy would hang out maybe stay out all night then got to his house and eat breakfast, one morning he made biscuits and chocolate gravy oh man it was good!!! Now every time i ask some one if they tryed it they say no and say nasty but they have never tryed it. Well i guess not a lot of people have tryed chocolate gravy down here in GA….. To bad and i thank it tastes a hole lot better then just chocolate alone!!!
I just heard of this and this is how I used it. I made french toast with cinnamon bread and then covered it with chocolate gravy. SO DELICIOUS!
I grew up in northern Mississippi and my Mother and Grandmother made this as far as my memory goes as have I made it for my kids and Grandkids. We mostly had it on plain white or yellow cake as a sauce.I had not heard it called chocolate gravy until many years later after moving to Alaska. I’d eat that stuff on shoe leather it’s so good.
I am 31 yrs old and been eatin chocolate gravy and bisquits since I was a lil kid. We just called it a country thang, lol.
Barbaric. Anyone who knows me will tell you chocolate before noon is barbarous. Period. That is it. Look @ what joe, brockbrake and winston say. I have to bail. You give me the heebee jebees just thinking about it
I live in southern illinois we have this on pancakes. My mom always made it and said says she remembers har grandma making it for breakfast when she was little. We have always just called it chocolate syrup though, I guess somewhere along it got changed in our family because we eat it on pancakes. Homemade biscuits aren’t really a thing in our family, I guess we aren’t southern enough.
chocolate…
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Hmmm chocolate gravy??? I might have to try this! Sounds good, and I like anything:-D. Please follow my site and add me on your blogroll! my site is http://www.taytaybakes.wordpress.com. Thank u! Tell everyone u know!
I live in Oklahoma and a friend of ours qwould make it for her kids and us all the time. We loved it and now my daughter makes it for her kids whom also love it. If people look at you crazy when you mention it just smile and think of what they have missed out on and you have gotten to enjoy!
God created this gravy for me. Thank you Lord!!! Heaven, I’m in heaven!!!!
God created this gravy for me. Thank you Lord!!!!! Heaven, I’m in heaven!!!!